
Book _,^ Syr 



Phases of Royal Government 
in New York 1691-1719 



y^" 'l.il„„,.'"" '^'^^■ 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 

FOR THE 

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

IN 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



By 
CHARLES WORTHEN SPENCER 

SOMETIME UNIVERSITY FELLOW IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, COLGATE UNIVERSITY 



COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Press of Fred. J. Heer 

1905 



Phases of Royal Government 
in New York 1691-1719 




A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 

FOR THE 

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

IN 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



By 

CHARLES WORTHEN SPENCER 

■f 

SO^IETI^!E UNIVERSITY FELLOW IN AMERICAN HISTORY, 

IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, COLGATE UNIVERSITY 



COLUMBUS, OHIO 

Press of Fred. J. Heer 

1905 



S7r 



?/<PP., 'S;^^ 



By tranefei 

OCT 20 1915 



l"^, ,-.?^«*^o, "<^t% 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter I. Introduction 5 

Chapter II. The Executive Official System 12 

Chapter III. The Legislature 58 

Chapter IV. Financial Affairs before 1709 97 

Chapter V. The Revenue Controversy, 1709-1717 129 

Bibliographical Note 156 

(3) 



CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. 

As a royal province in the British empire in the eighteenth 
century, New York well illustrates the duality of political exist- 
ence characteristic of such a community. It was, on the one 
hand, a province with its own local interests to be respected and 
developed, its peculiar history, and its own local consciousness 
of these as features of identity. It was, equally, on the other 
hand, a part of the British empire, with its share of the benefits 
and burdens attaching to that relation. The ideal of empire, 
probably only vaguely before the mind of the British government 
at that time, provided for co-operation and interaction between 
these two aspects of provincial existence, which, while always 
emphasizing imperial welfare, yet sought to achieve that welfare 
by development of the peculiar situation of the province. For 
example, provincial policy in the matter of Indian relations illus- 
trates with peculiar felicity this duality of existence. Upon main- 
tenance of the friendly relations with the Iroquois, inherited 
from the Dutch, depended, not alone the fur-trade, but the very 
existence of the province. Experience developed the fact that, 
owing to the peculiar position of the Five Nations among the 
native races of the continent, this Iroquois alliance was the key 
to the Indian policy of all the continental English communities 
taken together. Successful administration of this problem re- 
quired recognition of both local and general aspects and the elab- 
oration of a line of conduct vvhich should make the two aspects 
serve each other. 

It was the unic[ue task of the governor of such a province 
to blend, in his actual conduct of public affairs, these two aspects 
of provincial existence. In theory, he was the governmental 
head of the community, and, at the same time, the crown's agent 
in this particular unit of the administrative system of a general 
imperial policy. In theory, also, the organization of the legis- 
lature provided simply for assistance to the governor in the 
execution of his dual function by representatives of the com- 
munity at large. Actually, however, as described in Chapter 
II., the organization and relations of the executive official system 

(5) 



6 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

made it far iiiorc easily and characteristically llic exponent of 
the policy of the imperial government than of the local interests 
of the province. Similarly, the legislature became, in practice, 
the exponent of local-provincial feeling and policy, rather than 
of any attempt to embody this with general imperial interest in 
the conduct of public aflfairs. 

It is obvious that the realization of the ideal of co-operation 
and supplementation of these two aspects of provincial existence 
would be difficult. As in the case of the Holy Roman Empire 
successful working required mutual confidence on the part of the 
two elements, which was seldom realized ; so, in this case, the 
relation between executive and legislature was seldom for any 
long period one of mutual understanding and intelligent co- 
operation. There were certain circumstances in particular, act- 
ing as obstructions in the path of the realization of the ideal, 
which may be mentioned. The imperial administration, on the 
one hand, awkward and lumbering under the best of circum- 
stances, failed to exercise the requisite care in the delicate matter 
of appointment to the governorship. Court influences resulted 
in the a]:)pointment of adventurers like Fletcher and Cornbury. 
Even when pains were taken to select a man on the basis of the 
particular needs of the situation from the government point of 
view, the result might not be the choice of a man with the right 
sort of skill. This was true in the case of the Bellomont appoint- 
ment. Even in the case of what was, in its results, the nearest 
to an ideal appointment — that of Hunter — efficient svipport 
from home could not be relied upon by th.e appointee. Circum- 
stances of local character in the province, on the other hand, v/ere 
equally an obstruction to the attainment of the ideal. In the 
first place, the heat of factious passion, coming over from the 
Leisler affair, caused popular attention and interest to center 
more on measures bringing triumph to one or other of the local 
factions than on issues of truly public policy. Then, too, outside 
the realm of Leislerian or .Anti-Leislerian politics, the men of 
leading calibre were, as a class, characterized more by selfish 
ambition for the interests of a group of local magnates and their 
dependents, than bv intelligent appreciation of the true relations 
of local-provincial and general-imperial interests. 

The actual interworking of all these features, during the 
first twenty years after 1691, was such that we may say that 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 7 

durir.g all this time there was no effective opportunity for the 
realization of the possibilities contained in the theory of the Royal 
Provin':e. Not until experience had brought the province 
through a period of developing education, and fortune had 
brought to the governorship a man having both an intelligent 
conception of the ideal, and — what was equally important — the 
personal temperament and political skill capable of making an 
impression on the actual conduct of affairs, was a sound basis 
of political development reached. 

The four months of Sloughter's administration served merely 
to commit the newly established government to the policy of perse- 
cuting the leaders of the Leislerian regime. Whatever may be 
the degree of truth in Smith's violently hostile characterization 
of Sloughter, he certainly was not a person of the strength of 
character required to settle the government in a community torn 
with faction as was- New York. Ingoldsby's administration of 
fourteen months was, in main outline, a continuation of the 
regime inaugurated under Sloughter's auspices by those who 
had played the part of victims during Leisler's rule. Ingoldsby's 
administration illustrated the characteristics of periods happen- 
ing with unfortunate frequency during New York's early exist- 
ence as a royal province, viz., the intervals between the death, 
removal or long absence of a governor, and his return or the 
arrival of the next incumbent. Under such circumstances, there 
was likely to be either a suspension of the more active and 
aggressive features of provincial development, with surreptitious 
exploitation of opportunities for private gain, such as corrupt 
dealings in land grants, or a violent use of governmental ma- 
chinery, made unscrupulous by a consciousness of desperation 
such as is illustrated in the last weeks of Nanfan's power. In- 
goldsby's term, in 1691-1692, illustrates the former group of activ 
ities, which served almost as well as the other type of proceedings 
to hinder the normal development of the possibilities of interac- 
tion between the two aspects of provincial existence. 

The administration of Fletcher, from 1692 to 1698, did little 
to improve the situation. Important elements of the imperial 
system were perverted for corrupt purposes. The system of 
connivance at violations of the imperial trade system enriched 
a few New Yorkers at the expense of the ideal of the empire. 
Extravagant grants of land to a few favorites endangered Indian 



O rilASKS OF ROYAL GOVERNMEiNT 

relations and retarded the development and peopling of the prov- 
ince for many years to come. The circumstances of war on the 
frontiers necessitated activity in those departments of the imperial 
and provincial systems which bore on military matters, but the 
actual conduct of these affairs did little to promote tlie spirit 
of co-operation. Fletcher's conduct of hostilities was energetic, 
but unskilful and wasteful. The heavy burdens of taxation and 
detaciiments of militia for frontier service were not rendered 
lighter by the conviction on the part of many that the governor's 
arrogance and lack of tact were responsible for the disobedience 
of the neighboring provinces to the direction from England that 
they should be aiding and assisting to New York. The home 
government itself was hard pressed and could render bttle effect- 
ive aid. Then, Fletcher's attitude in matters of local partisan- 
ship was practically a continuation of the Anti-Leislerian course 
pursued by the government since Sloughter's arrival. This com- 
plicated the relations between governor and assembly in the mat- 
ter of raising supplies for military purposes. Altogether, these 
were not favorable circumstances for the development of the 
ideal of co-operation between the local and imperial aspects of 
provincial life. 

Bellomont's arrival inaugurated a veritable revolution in the 
course of affairs. He threw himself vigorously into the task 
of the suppression of piracy, in so far as New York was con- 
cerned therewith. He put into practice, as it was intended to be 
used, the system of penalties for violations of the acts of trade 
and navigation. In other words, the imperial trade system, with 
ill the machinery that that involved, began to have effective 
operation in New York for the first time. Bellomont was very 
active in attempts at development of the positive aspect of the 
imperial trade system, and expended much energy in devising 
ways and means for inaugurating the naval stores policy in 
New York. It was impossible for him to develop the crown's 
landed estate on account of Fletcher's misconduct, but all his 
efforts went towards correcting and undoing as far as jijossible 
that official's mischief. Rut in all this, as in other matters, the 
complication of local jjartisan politics exercised a baleful influ- 
ence. Fletcher and Cornbury went through the motions of a 
zeal for the empire, which, practically, as events worked out, 
meant a zeal for the personal welfare of themselves and a 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 9 

favored group of magnates whose provincial interests made po- 
litical influence with the government necessary to them. In the 
case of Bellomont we have a genuine zeal for imperial interests, 
intelligently conceived and impartially administered, as far as 
"graft" is concerned. But the circumstances of his accession and 
the circumstances of the province combined to make the spirit of 
partisanship in the assembly and in the subordinate executive ser- 
vice too much for him to control. Long before he came to the 
province it was known that he was enthusiastically of the opinion 
that the Leislerian cause and party had been shamefully treated. 
So much of his activity on arriving in the province was of the neg- 
ative kind — undoing mischief and punishing wrong-doers — and 
he made it such a personal affair with Fletcher that, with a 
people of provincial character, he could hardly avoid presenting 
the appearance of being chief of the Leislerian faction. This, 
of course, awakened into well-nigh ungovernable activity the 
revengeful zeal of the friends of Leisler. Bellomont had his 
hands full, even when he was in the province, in keeping a decent 
peace. When, then, death removed the only member of the gov- 
ernment whose authority and personality was sufficient to hold 
passions in leash, the violence of the long-repressed Leislerians 
knew no bounds. The debauch of vindictive passion under the 
administration of Nanfan, of which the Bayard and Hutchins 
trial and the confiscation of Robert Livingston's estate are the 
most conspicuous manifestations, is a measure for us of Bello- 
mont's real service. From some points of view it seems as if 
Bellomont's administration was too short to am.ount to anything 
as an object-lesson of what royal provincial government might 
be. But the odds against success in this attempt were heavy. 
The division of his attention between three governments, lack 
of the most efficient support from home, the excessive rage 
of passions, for a part of which lie was, for personal rea.sons, 
unwittingly and inevitably responsible, militated strongly against 
the success of his administration. Hard-won progress was 
made towards giving the theory of the empire a chance. But 
the province needed more experience to make this beginning 
fruitful. 

Up to the time of Bellomont's death, it may be said that the 
exponents of the general-imperial aspect of provincial life had 
been more conspicuous, had been more bold in grasp and initia- 



10 PHASES OF KOYAL GOVERNMENT 

tivc. This was natural. The assembly was new to its work. 
The circumstances of war complicated development. Nanfan's 
administration from 1701 to 1702, taken as the outspoken and 
unrestrained expression of what was present but suppressed 
under Bellomont, is the time when local provincial forces get 
the upper hand. This period, discouraging in its revelation of 
possibilities, is not to be taken as fairly representing what was 
truly characteristic of provincial life, any more than Fletcher's 
administration is to be taken as an exemplification of the im- 
perial theory. In fact, the" features of excessive violence may 
be regarded as the consequences of the exasperation resulting 
from the Sloughter and Fletcher regimes, and the escape from 
utter wrecking of the imperial machinery, wdiich even the most 
violent Leislerians recognized as out of the question as a matter 
of expediency, may be regarded as due to Bellomont. 

The promise of better things, vaguely felt as expressed in 
tlie appointment of Cornbury, came to nothing. His relationship 
to the queen and his "interest" at court flattered the New 
Yorkers' sense of importance. But experience soon developed 
to the eyes of the knot of maG:nates, v/ho were the real springs 
of power in the province, that for their purposes he was worse 
than Fletcher and Bellomont. We may indeed suppose that this 
group of leading individuals, standing, really, midway between 
popular feeling in general and the particular designs of the em- 
pire for the province, had themselves grown into slightly larger- 
minded conceptions of tlie interest of the province. Still they 
looked upon public policy with a view in which their personal 
interests bulked most conspicuously. For their purpose, a gov- 
ernor must manage to keep just enough in favor with the home 

-^overnment to keep his place, and must equally escape ahenating 
popular provincial favor so as to avoid frittering away his energy 
in fruitless quarrels with the popular element — fruitless, that 
is, to their schemes. The great service rendered by Cornbury 's 
administration to the development of New York as a royal prov- 
ince was the fact that he lost estimation both with the people 
of the province and with the local magnates, and thus compelled 
a measure of union among all elements for a common public end. 
This union against Cornbury's aim to make both imperial and 
])rovincial interests serve his personal ends was finally successful. 

But another short term of office — that of Lovelace for six 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. II 

months — and another interval of government by a figure-head 
— Ingoldsby, again, for thirteen months — intervened before the 
arrival of a governor adequate to the task before him. 

In Hunter we have the first governor whose administration 
displayed not only intelligent zeal for the empire and sympa- 
thetic appreciation of the situation of the provincials, but also 
the ability to relate these two features in the actual conduct of 
affairs. 

Full description of these successive administrations and of 
Hunter's career in New York would be an extensive task, requir- 
ing for its satisfactory 'achievement materials not at present 
accessible. It would practically constitute a political history of 
the province during its first 'stage of royal provincial existence. 
It is one of the purposes of this sketch rather to describe as 
carefully as may be the two elements of the governmental system, 
representing respectively the general-imperial and the local-pro- 
vincial aspects of New York, as they actually developed during 
the period from 1691 to the close of Hunter's administration. 
Chapters II. and III. are concerned with this description. These 
chronological limits are chosen because this was the period during 
v/hich were elaborated the main outlines of the system and the 
more or less permanent methods of control, of that which has 
always been fundamental in English political development, viz., 
the power of the purse. Throughout all the manifestations of 
social and public life in the province, there was, to an extent, a 
general contest between provincial and imperial ideals. The 
essentially fundamental relation of financial, to all other ques- 
tions, gives particular importance to the development of the 
contest between these ideals in the matter of control over raising 
and spending public money. In chapters IV. and V. an endeavor 
is m.ade to trace the story of this development. The elaboration 
of this financial system and the application of the results of the 
controversy over the matter to the general conduct of provincial 
aflfairs, in a way, make up the first stage of the existence of New 
York as a royal province. 



CHAPTER II. THE EXECUTIVE OFFICIAL SYSTEM. 

In the original constitution of government in the province 
of New York, after its organization by the government of Wil- 
liam and Mary, the executive held a position of especial advan- 
tage and, at first, at any rate, of power. The newly established as- 
sembly took some time in learning its position and possible 
power, and a struggle for vantage ground preceded its engage- 
ment in the struggle for the dominating position in the provincial 
government which it afterward attained. And in the executive 
department tlie governor was easily the dominating figure. There 
were other executive officials, holding office by patent from the 
crown and having functions important in provincial and impe- 
rial life. The executive aspect of the functions of the council 
was also of great importance. Nevertheless the relations between 
the governor and these officials and the council were such that, 
in the last analysis, it was the character and aims of the individ- 
ual who held the office of governor that determined the com- 
plexion of the adminir^tration of public affairs in the province. 

With this view of the importance of the governor, the cir- 
cumstances surrounding appointment to an office of so great 
possibilities come to be of interest. The appointment was made 
by the King in Council, the name of the appointee was then sig- 
nified by the Principal Secretary of State, wlto was at the time in 
charge of colonial affairs, to the Board of Trade, and at the same 
time the latter were desired to prepare a commission and a set 
of instructions. The influences actually having weight in the 
selection of individuals for this im.portant office are not easy to 
determine. Authoritative information on the subject is scanty 
and fragmentary and yields only negative results to the search 
for light on the workings of the imperial system at this period. 

It would appear that, whether solicited or not, the crown did 
not lack for intimations from interested parties, at any rate as 
to the qualities desired in an appointee. Thus, in 1689 we find a 
petition to the king from twenty-one merchants trading to and 
in New York, expressing to the king satisfaction in the appoint- 
ment of Sloughter, calling attention to the strategic position of 

(12) 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 13 

New York and desiring- that some military force and equipment 
be sent out with the,new irovernor.^ In 1701, after the death of 
Bellomont, we find Robert Livingston in a long communication 
to the Board of Trade mentioning as among the things necessary 
at that time for the preservation of the province, "that a governor 
be appointed who is a soldier, a man fearing God and hating 
covetousness and who will administer impartially without sid- 
ing with any faction."- Again, in 1708, we find Lewis Morris 
writing to the Secretary of State in terms of the greatest 
freedom as to the "impudent conduct of the Governors, to call 
it no worse, that has been the great prejudice of her Majesty's 
service in America ;" adding, "We are told Sir Gilbert Heathcote 
has made some interest for his brother. Coll. Caleb Heathcote; 
he will be a man to the general satisfaction of ye people, and at 
this juncture to obteine a resetlement of her Ma j -ties revenue no 
man fitter. I know no man understands the Province or People 
better, or is more capable of doing her Majestic reall service. He 
is an honest man and the reverse of my Lord Cornbury."^ 
Whether either of these latter communications, or their substance, 
ever came to the knowledge of the sovereign is of course impos- 
sible to determine. Certainly Cornbury was as far as it is possi- 
ble to conceive from the ideal figure sketched by Livingston and 
the appointment of Lovelace would at best indicate that military 
qualities at that juncture were considered more important than 
thoroug'h understanding of the province and people. 

The appointment of Bellomont. an appointment as to which 
we have more than the usual amount of evidence concerning 
the crown's specific purpose, and upon which, apparently, unusual 
care was expended in consideration of the qualities of the appoin- 
tee, reflected the disposition to consider more the interests of the 
trading empire at large than the exceedingly peculiar local situ- 
ation in New York. At that time the quality of impartiality men- 
tioned in Livingston's requirements was quite as necessary as in 
1 70 1, and in this particular Bellomont was deficient, at any rate 
in any effective degree, and his predilection for the cause of one 



' Col. Doc. III. 651. 
^Ibid. IV. 878. 
•■' Ibid. V. 37-8. 



14 PHASKS OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

of tb.e factions in the province had hcen matter of pubHc knowl- 
cdge before his appointment..^ 

In the case of Fletcher, (1692-1698), we have his own asser- 
tion in liis defence against charges of corruption, that "in the 
Irish Warr" and in his thirty years of service precechng he was 
"so far from making gaine by the misfortunes of our friends that 
I never did it from the ruine of our enemies and it was I presume 
the report of this behaviour that sent me into New York for I 
had never thought of the place till the moment it was proposed 
to me and my answer required."- We have no more than his 
own assertion for these points, however, and in the reply made 
to this defence of Fletcher's, we have a hint as to forces that 
were reputed to have great weight in the making of all these 
appointments. It was asserted that, so far as misfortunes in 
Ireland were concerned, Bellomont had suffered more in this par- 
ticular "from that power that preferred and advanced Col. 
Fletcher," and that, too, at a time when Fletcher was not disturbed 
in his patrimony." As to Fletcher's need for the exercise of favor 
from some quarter, we have the testimony of William Penn to 
the fact of his being "a necessitous man," of whom it was to 
be feared that he would "more consider the advancement of his 
own private fortunes than the public benefit of the Province."* 

The disposition to explain the influences determining ap- 
pointments in terms of other things than personal fitness is re- 
flected all through William Smith's "History of New York." 
Thus in the case of Sloughter's appointment he remarks that a 
governor never was more necessary for reconciling a divided 
people as well as for defending them ; "But cither through the 
hurry of the King's affairs or the powerful interest of a favorite 
a man was sent over utterly destitute of every qualification for 
government."^ In like manner. Smith describes Cornburv's earlv 



' "The King did him the honor to say that he thought him a man 
of resolution and integrity, and with these qualities more likely than any 
other he could think of, to put a stop to the growth of piracy." Smith. 
History of New York, p. 150. 

= Col. Doc. IV. 445. 

Mbid. IV. 458. 

* Ibid. IV. 221. 

'' Smith, p. 122. Colden's estimate of the reliability of Smith's char- 
acterizations of governors was very low, Smith's defects in this regard 
being ascribed to "force of early prejudice — a narrow education, a weak 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. I5 

desertion of James II. for William, and adds, "King William in 
gratitude for his services gave him a commission for this gov- 
ernment."^ 

The appointment of Hunter is the most interesting of all, 
for, though he proved to be the best governor New York ever 
had, there seems to be no evidence that there was anything more 
in this case than the bestowal of a place on a favorite, this time 
happening to be a man well qualified for his post. Smith men- 
tions his acquaintance with Addison and others and hazards the 
suggestion that it was "by their interest that he was advanced 
to this profitable place."- Colden in his Letters on Smith's "His- 
tory" mentions Hunter's membership in the guard of honor of the 
Princess Anne when she retired from her father's court, his ser- 
vice in William's and Anne's army till after Ramillies, his com- 
mission as governor of Virginia, obtained through "friends in 
Queen Anne's Court," and, further, names Dr. Arbuthnot, the 
queen's favorite physician, as the court influence behind Hunter. 
"The Duke of Marlborough's influence over the Queen began 
about this time to lessen, and Dr. Arbuthnot prevailed with the 
Queen to name Mr. Hunter for the government of Jamaica which 
happened to be vacant without consulting her Ministry who had 
designed that government for another, but Mr. Hunter being 
apprehensive that if he went to Jamaica against the inclinations 
of the ministry he would be made uneasy in his government and 
the government of New York becoming vacant at this time by 
the death of Lord Lovelace, the Ministers were willing that he 
should have the Government of New York, therefor Mr. Hunter 
desired his friends to inform the Queen that he would rather 
have the government of New York than Jamaica, and it was 
accordingly granted him."^ An undoubted instance in eighteenth 
century English politics of "something equally as good" ! 



judgement and a stubborn temper of mind" (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls., 1869, 
p. 207). It is not necessary to agree with Colden in this opinion of 
Smith, but, apart from the general question, it is to be observed that 
upon the point of reasons leading to the appointment Smith would 
probably be simply recording what was matter of general impression m 
N. Y. at the time and, so far as this goes, his serviceability is hardly to 
be impeached. 

'Smith, p. 169. 

'Ibid. 199. 

'N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls. 1868, p. 196. 



!0 1 iiASiiS OF ROYAL GOVERN M1£NT 

Huring the period under consideration, three of the gov- 
ernors were members of the nobihty — Richard, Earl of Bello- 
mont, Edward, Viscount Cornbury, and John, Lord Lovelace, 
Baron of Hurley; three were soldiers — Colonels Sloughter and 
Fletcher, and Brigadier Hunter. None were natives of New 
York or persons with previous experience in any practical way 
with the affairs of the dependencies. All but one, Sloughter, 
were governors of other provinces at the same time with their 
incumbency in New York ; Fletcher, of Pennsylvania, from 26 
October, 1692, to 20 August, 1694; Bellomont, throughout his 
incumbency, of Massachusetts and New Hampshire; Cornbury, 
Lovelace and Hunter, of New Jersey. It does not appear that this 
circumstance of a double government was regarded in New York 
as of very serious importance except in the case of Bellomont, 
who was absent from New York for nearly a year out of his three 
years of residence in America. At this time a petition of thirty- 
three New York merchants was preferred to the king, alleging 
that the strictness of Bellomont's instructions to the lieutenant 
governor during his (Bellomont's) absence acted as a great hind- 
rance to justice, trade and industry without any advantage to 
other sui'jccts or to the king, and praying that the province be 
restored to "its former manner of administration unconcerned 
with the Governor of any other place. "^ This should probably 
be interpreted, however, as a part of the general mercantile hos- 
tilitv to Bellomont rather than as a serious complaint on this 
point as a specific grievance. As to the connection with New 
Jersey, no complaint appears from any quarter in New York, 
and tliere would seem to be little reason for any, for the gov- 
ernor's absences in that province were only for the purpose of 
meeting the assembly there and the sessions rarely consumed 
more than seven or eight weeks out of the year. In 1709 the 
point was raised, whether orders concerning New York given by 
the governor when he himself was in New Jersey were not void. 
The Board of Trade gave opinion that this was "groundless and 
unreasonable the contrary being practised every Day here by the 
Lords Lieutenants of Counties and particularly by the Lords 
Lieutenants of Ireland who frequently send orders into Ireland 
whilst they are Resident in the Kingdom."^ 

'Col. Doc. IV. 624. 
'Col. Doc. V. 155. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. I7 

The tenure of office by the governor was during the pleas- 
ure of the crown and the powers granted by the commission were 
to be exercised immediately upon arrival within the province, 
which arrival, followed immediately by the publication of the 
commission, worked the determination of the effectiveness of the 
commission of the preceding incumbent.^ It might, and fre- 
quently did, happen that some time elapsed between the appoint- 
ment of a governor and the exercise by him of the powers con- 
veyed by his commission. Thus : 

Sloughter — Commission dated 14 November, 1689 ; arrived 
in New York 19 March, 1691. 

Fletcher — Commission dated 17 March, 1692; arrived in 
JSjew York 28 August, 1692. 

Bellomont- — Appointed 16 March, 1697 ; arrived 2 April, 
1698. 

Cornbury — Appointed 13 June, 1701 ; arrived 3 May, 1702. 

Lovelace — Appointed 28 March, 1708; arrived 18 Decem- 
ber, 1708. 

Hunter — Appointed 9 September, 1709; arrived 14 June, 
1710. 

During the period from 1691 to 1720 the frequency with 
which the office of governor changed hands undoubtedly consti- 
tuted a feature of weakness in the imperial system of colonial 
admisintration.^ Eleven different persons administered the pow- 
ers of the governor's commission during the above-mentioned 
period, of whom six held commissions as governor and six 
acted ad interim ; one, Ingoldsby, as commander-in-chief, from 
2^ July, 1691, to 30 August, 1692, and as lieutenant governor 
from 6 May, 1709, to 10 April, 1710; one, Nanfan, as lieutenant 
governor from 20 May, 1701, to 3 May, 1702; and two, as pres- 
ident of the council, Beekman, from 10 April, 1710, to 16 June, 
1710, and Schuyler, from July, 1719, to September, 1720. There 
was one period of interregnum, as it were. On the death of Bel- 
lomont, 5 March, 1701, the lieutenant governor, Nanfan, was 

' Col. Doc. IV. 272. 

^ Smith (p. 149) says that Bellomont was appointed in 1695 but the 
appointment was signified to the Board of Trade on the above date. Col. 
Doc. IV. 261. 

^ Egerton : A Short History of British Colonial Policy, pp. 156-8. 

2 



15 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERN MliNT 

on leave of absence in Barbadoes. Dispute immediately arose as 
to whether powers of administration devolved upon the president 
of the council or upon the council acting by a majority of votes 
under the presidency of the eldest councilor. The violence of 
the spirit of faction then raging in the province caused the eldest 
councilor, William Smith, to proceed with so great caution that 
no precedent could be said to have been created by the case, the 
details of which will be related in anotb.er connection. Fortun- 
ately no outbreak occurred, and the arrival of Xanfan, 20 May, 
1701, {)ut an end to an extremely awkward situation. Making 
no distinction between governors holding office by commission 
and persons administering the povv'ers of the commission ad in- 
terim, the office changed hands ten times between 1691 and 1720, 
and the average term was, approximately, two years and a half. 
J t is to be noted with respect to this average, that it does not by 
any means tell the story. The terms of two governors, Sloughter 
and Lovelace, were cut very short by death, in the case of Slough- 
ter, after four months, and in the case of Lovelace, after six 
months, of office. As we shall see, the powers of a lieutenant 
governor or a president of the council, particularly the latter, 
were of a somewhat curtailed character, compared v»ith those of 
a governor ; so that as material for the study of the working of 
the imperial system under normal circumstances, we have during 
this period only the administrations of Fletcher, of five years and 
a half, Bellomont, nearly three years, Cornbury, five years and 
a half, and Hunter, a little over nine years. 

During the period considered two governors were displaced, 
Fletcher and Cornbury. It is difficult to find any very reliable 
material for judgment upon the standard of efficiency required 
of governors in their tenure of office, in the circumstances of 
these displacements. Fletcher made a great deal of Shrewsbury's 
letter recalling him, in which Fletcher was informed that "it 
was not for any dissatisfaction but in favor of the Earl of Bello- 
mont," and that the king would take care of him and employ 
him otherwise for the future.^ It docs not appear that Fletcher 
ever was given another post, and his administration was certainly 
subjected to very close and suspicious examination, and, in sev- 
eral items, described as "not for your Majesty's service," by the 



' Cal. Treas. Papers, vol. 1697-1701-2, p. 542 ; Col. Doc. IV. 443. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. IQ 

Board of Trade. ^ This was after a series of hearings by the 
Board upon charges against Fletcher covering a variety of sub- 
jects. Complaints had been made against him to the Board in 
August and September, 1695, by Robert Livingston, charging 
him with refusal to account to the assembly for disposal of pub- 
lic money and with undue influence over elections.- Further 
complaints were entered in September, 1696, by Leisler and 
Gouverneur, for partisanship in the internal factions in the prov- 
ince, undue influence over elections, misapplications of money 
raised by the assembly and of money sent by other colonies for 
defence, defrauding of the soldiers of the independent com- 
panies.^ Later in the year, in December, Penn submitted a letter 
from New York, dated 13 June, 1695, which he said he had kept 
by him for eight months, "being unwilling to concern himself in 
the matters — chiefly complaints against Colonel Fletcher. But 
however he thought fit in the end to discharge his hands of it." 
This letter, the signature of which was cancelled, was from Peter 
de la Noy, a prominent Leislerian, and covered the same subjects 
mentioned above and, in addition, mentioned the matter of 
Fletcher's complicity in the operations of New York pirates.* 
These complaints, with Bellomont's voluminous correspondence 
upon the subject of Fletcher's misdeeds, formed the basis of the 
formal charges, which covered a great variety of subjects — pro- 
tection of pirates, exorbitant grants of land, connivance at illegal 
trade, neglect of the military forces and of fortifications, illegal 
grant of letters of denization, discourtesy to the governor of Can- 
ada.^ Whether these evidences of inefficiency or improper pro- 
cedure would of themselves have been sufficient to secure his dis- 
missal, it is hard to say. Both Fletcher and Livingston seem each 
to have thought himself in favor with the Duke of Shrewsbury, 
and the letter from de la Noy before referred to speaks of the 
people's "apprehension of his (Fletcher's) great power at court." 
That skilful use of complaints from the province, coupled with 
manipulation of court influences, was considered to be a possible 
method of getting rid of an obnoxious governor, we have ample 



'Col. Doc. IV. 481. 
'Ibid. IV. 127-30, 143-5. 
'Ibid. IV. 212-16. 
^Ibid. IV. 221-4. 
Mbid. IV. 443. 



20 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

evidence. Perhaps the best example is the case of Bellomont 
himself, whose activity in enforcing the acts of trade and in 
discountenancing piracy so angered the merchants of New York 
that within a year of his arrival they "raised a sum of money 
by contribution, which they have sent for England, therewith to 
apply privately at Court to get the Earl removed."^ Apparently 
an equally important part of the scheme was to influence elec- 
tions to the assembly, so that the latter would refuse to renew 
the revenue, which would be a "sure means to ruin the Earl's 
interest at Court and get him quickly called horae."^ This plot 
was fomented from England by Fletcher after his return, who 
wrote to his New York friends just before these elections that 
"his affairs were in a very prosperous condition at the Court of 
England and that he made no manner of question to baffle all the 
accusations sent home against him."^ And later, in 1700, we 
find London merchants who traded to New York representing to 
the Board that Bellomont was discouraging lawful trade by his 
mismanagement, and in February, 1701, petitioning parliament 
for redress in the same matter.* The question whether Fletcher 
should be recalled actually for the misconduct indicated in the 
charges was probably never squarely faced by the imperial ad- 
ministration. The materials for the charges had been coming 
to the knowledge of the "Lords of the Committee" for nearly a 
year before the establishment of the "Board of Trade," in May, 
1696. This Board, composed for the most part of men without 
official experience, was made acquainted in a still more compre- 
hensive way with the complaints against Fletcher in August and 
September, 1696, and in their representation on the northern 
colonies to the Lord Justices, 30 September, 1696, suggested, for 
military reasons,^ the appointment of a captain-general for the 
war, to command all regular forces and the militia of all the 
colonies on the continent, this captain-general to have the power 



' Col. Doc. IV. 462. 

Mbid. IV. 508. 

' Ibid. 

* Ibid. IV. 604. 

" Possibly on the basis of the suggestion of Nelson, a Bostonian who 
had been taken prisoner by the French and who was at that time in 
England on parole. Brooke and Nicolls recommended him to the Board 
as able to inform them very particularly on the strength of the French 
in Canada. Col. Doc. IV. 186. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 21 

of governor of any of the plantations immediately depending on 
the crown while present in it.^ It was after this, 11 December, 
1696, that the information concerning Fletcher's complicity with 
pirates seems to have been brought to the attention of the Board, 
who notified Fletcher in a letter of i February, 1697, that infor- 
mation had reached them from recent trials of pirates that his 
government was reputed to offer protections to pirates.^ In their 
representation to the king, 27 February, 1697, the Board pre- 
sented the matured results of their consideration of their sugges- 
tion to the Lords Justices for the military union of all the colonies. 
Their proposition now took the form of a governor for Mas- 
sachusetts, New York and New Hampshire, with chief residence 
at New York and with power of captain-general in those prov- 
inces and in Connecticut, Rhode Island and the Jersies.^ This 
was followed in less than a month by the appointment of Bello- 
mont to the position whose powers had thus been indicated. It 
seems probable that this appointment was made for the reasons 
which had had weight in the determination to carry out the 
above-mentioned recommendation of the Board, the importance 
of the position requiring a man of greater consequence than 
Fletcher could possibly be, and perhaps in view also of the 
king's high opinion of Bellomont, which was expressed at the 
time of his appointment. 

There are some circumstances about the recall of Fletcher 
and the appointment of Bellomont which suggest that it was 
an early case of securing the recall of an obnoxious governor 
through the medium of an agency, in this case informally con- 
stituted. It was noted above that complaints against Fletcher 
were brought to the Board in August and September, 1696, by 
Leisler and Gouverneur at just about the time that Brooke and 
Nicolls as agents of the province were making representations 
on the condition of the province with reference to the question of 
defence. Leisler and Gouverneur were the natural leaders of the 
Leislerian party in New York, which outnumbered their oppo- 
nents three to one,* and which had undoubtedly been discrim- 
inated against ever since Sloughter's arrival. They found no 



^Col. Doc. IV. 228-9. 
' Ibid. IV. 255. 
'Ibid. IV. 259. 
*Ibid. IV. 524. 



22 PHASES OF ROYAL C.OVliRNMENT 

opportunity of expressing themselves in the governmental organ- 
ization of the province, and the visit of Lcisler and (jouverneur 
to England was naturally used by the party to improve its gen- 
eral situation in every possible way. Their success with parlia- 
ment in getting the attainder of the elder Leisler reversed natur- 
ally gave them the greatest encouragement and they bitterly 
resented the appointment of Brooke and Nicolls as agents, as- 
serting that it was a packed assembly that voted the money for 
the agency, that the agents were inveterate Anti-Leislerians sent 
over ostensibly to represent the state of the province, but actually 
to secure the "interest" of Fletcher and the Anti-Leislerians at 
court, etc. Peter de la Noy's letter to Penn, already referred 
to, shows plainly one object which the Anti-Leislerians hoped 
for, viz., "the removall of this man and we are not sollicitous 
whether he is gently recalled or falls into disgrace, so we are 
rid of him."^ But in view of all the circumstances — ■ Fletcher's 
well-known "interest" at court, the equally obvious fact of the 
success of the Leislerian campaign in other high official quarters, 
the inaction of the administration in reference to the serious 
matters proved at the hearings of the charges against Fletcher, 
the opportunity to ascribe the supersession of Fletcher by Bello- 
mont to military exigencies of undoubtedly pressing character 

— in view of all these circumstances — it seems probable that the 
expressions used in Shrewsbury's letter to Fletcher — "not for 
dissatisfaction with him but in favor of the Earl of Bellomont" 

— were a very fair description of the situation. - 

In the case of Cornbury, we find complaints previous to his 
recall, from the collector and receiver-general in the province 
as to obstruction from the governor in the performance of his 
duties ;•'' from the lieutenant governor, that the governor gave 
him no instructions and prevented him from exercising any 
power either in New York or New Jersey ;' and from Lewis 
Morris of New Jersey, giving a detailed account of partisanship 



' Col. Doc. IV. 224. 

'' Chalmer.s say.s, "he vva.s soon after recalled partly owing to com- 
plaints made against him, but more with design to make room for a new 
plan of union of the Northern Colonies, on which the safety of the 
whole was supposed to depend." N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls. 1868, p. 149. 

»Col. Doc. V. 28. 

•Ibid. IV. 1162-3. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 23 

and corruption in New Jersey and plainly stating Cornbury's 
conduct in New York to be as bad or worse/ These complaints 
came by way of incident after a considerable number of experi- 
ences by the Board of his neglect and inefficiency in attending 
to their requirements. It seems likely, too, that the administra- 
tion was moved partly by a negative aspect of the news com- 
municated by Morris, viz., that it was useless to expect the 
province under present conditions to renew the revenue which 
v/as shortly to expire ; and partly by the possibility of a use for 
extraordinary military qualities in a governor of New York in 
view of the intended expedition to Canada. At all events, Love- 
lace's appointment would seem to tally with these conditions. 
Smith bluntly says, "We never had a governor so universally 
detested, nor any who so richly deserved the publick abhorrence. 
. . . Her Majesty graciously listened to the cries of her in- 
jured subjects, divested him of his power and appointed Lord 
Lovelace in his stead ; declaring that she would not countenance 
her nearest relations in oppressing her people."- He mentions 
Cornbury's impotency with the assembly, particularly in the 
matter of the revenue, and ascribes it to his partisanship against 
the Leislerians, his persecution of the Presbyterians, the fear of 
his bigotry entertained by the Dutch, his avarice, embezzlement 
of the public money and his sordid refusal to pay his private 
debts. ^ It would seem to be a plain case of personal unfitness, 
finally exhausting the long-suffering patience of all concerned. 
Of the actual forces efficient with the home government in 
bringing about his removal we have, however, in the material 
at present accessible no reliable evidence. 

From the circumstances thus brought out concerning the 
displacement of these two governors it appears that inefficiency 
and even corruption in the office could run rather a long course 
before meeting with decided action by the authorities at home. 
It also appears that, among the influences practically determining 
the duration and security of a governor's lease of power, faithful 
and efficient discharge of the office did not play the leading part. 

The governor was supported by the salary or allowance, 
and perquisites. The former was allotted by the crown from the 



'Col. Doc. V. 33. 
'Smith, p. 188. 
'Smith, p. 185. 



24 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

revenue p^ranted by the assembly for the support of government, 
and the amount was specified in the instructions. This allotted 
salary tended to increase during the period under consideration. 
His instructions directed Sloughtcr to take i6oo sterling, and 
the same amount was allotted to Fletcher. In the case of Bello- 
mont, who was governor of three colonies at once, the £600 was 
divided, and £400 allotted to Bellomont as governor of New 
York, and £200 to the lieutenant governor resident at New 
York.^ The theory was that Bellomont could afford to lose a 
portion of the customary New York salary because of his receipt 
of salaries in his other governments. And, on the other hand, 
considering the likelihood of frequent and prolonged absences of 
the governor from New York, the lieutenant governor here 
would require more than the usual compensation for that office, 
viz., one half the salary and perquisites of the governor during 
the time of the latter's absence. 

In the case of these first three governors, the allotted salary 
had been supplemented by the "presents," i. e., sums of money 
granted by the assembly "for the use of" the governor, gen- 
erally immediately after his arrival.- These presents seem to 
have been officially recognized by the crown as a part of the 
system of recompense for the governor, for a clause in the in- 
structions particularly required that no money or value thereof 
be granted "by any Act or Order of Assembly to any Governor 
or Lieutenant Governor or Commander-in-Chief . . . which 
shall not according to the Stile of Acts of Parliament in England 
be mentioned to be given and granted to us with the humble 
desire of such Assembly that the same be applyed to the use and 
behoof of such Governor . . . if we shall think fit or if we 
shall not approve of such gift or application" the money should 
be appropriated to other uses mentioned in the Act and to remain 
in the hands of the Collector till the royal j)lcasure be known.-'' 
Nevertheless Sloughter's first assembly granted the money that 
came in to the receiver-general on account of duties, etc., "accus- 
tomed to be taken but not Warrantable bv the Law" between 



'Col. Doc. IV. '290. The reverse of the arrangement in the case of 
Andros in 1688. 

' Peter de la Noy, referring to the present to Fletcher, calls It "the 
usual compliment made to a new Governor." Col. Doc. IV. 221. 

' Ibid III. 680. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 2$ 

29 January, 1691, the date of Ingoldsby's arrival, and 18 May, 
1691, the date of publication of the act granting a revenue for 
the support of government, to "his said Excellency to enable 
(him) to defray his extraordinary expence."^ 

The first assembly called by Fletcher made him a present, 
partially complying with the requirements of the instructions. 
By this act "the Rate of one Penny in the Pound upon all the 
Reall and Personal Estates within the Province" was granted 
to their Majesties "to be allowed unto his Excellency the Gov- 
ernor for his care of the Province ;" but no provision was made 
for complying with the other requirements of the instructions 
for such a case.- This rate, according to his own account, brought 
in to Fletcher actually about £600. His enemies asserted that 
it should have amounted to £2000, but that Fletcher, by his 
greediness, mismanaged tne collection so that he lost the greater 
part, that he accused the assessors of partiality and threatened to 
commit them to jail for not assessing the inhabitants heavily 
enough. Fletcher himself ascribed his misfortune to a merchant 
of the city to whom he entrusted the collection and by whom he 

' Colonial Laws of N. Y., 253-4. It is to be observed that this was 
the first assembly legally held in the province, since it came under the 
direct government of the crown. This assembly evidently took the 
ground that the new plan of government contained in the commission 
and instructions to Sloughter went into operation with the arrival of a 
royal officer commissioned to obey the king's "Governor of N. Y. now 
and for the time being." In that case, taxes of any sort could only be 
collected on the authority of the assembly which was directed to be 
summoned by the governor. A collector, then, who had continued to 
receive taxes dependent for their authority on the former regime, would 
need to be indemnified for such proceeding for the period between the 
determination of the old regime and actual granting of taxes by the 
proper authority of the new government. This indemnification was 
another feature of the act, which granted the proceeds of such collection 
to the governor. It is further to be observed that according to that which 
later became the custom of the province, the administration of a new 
governor did not begin till he had actually arrived and published his 
commission. From this technical point of view, then, the new Constitu- 
tion could not be regarded as actually in operation till the arrival of 
Sloughter, 19 March, nearly two months after the arrival of Ingoldsby, 
and in this act the assembly was granting what did not belong to it, 
and that to the amount of the proceeds of these two months. It does not 
appear, however, that this view of the matter was ever publicly mentioned. 
' Col. Laws I. 308. 



26 I'll ASKS OF KOVAL (".OVliUN M KNT 

was deceived — this according to Bellomont's report.^ Fletcher 
was also accused of trying to enforce the "present" device upon 
the smaller units of government, procuring, through his tools, an 
Address and a golden cup of the value of £20 from the city of 
New York, and, by the use of blackmailing methods uix)n the 
Indian fur-trade at Albany, a present of fifty or sixty of the best 
skins. ^ 

The first assembly of Bellomont's administration did no 
pulilic business. But at the first session of his second assembly, 
elected after changes in the lists of the returning officers and 
under circumstances of great excitement, an act was passed, 
granting to the king £2000, "£1500 whereof to be allowed to 
his Excellency. . . . and £500 to . . . the Lieutenant 
Governor." The provisions of this act seem even more at vari- 
ance with the letter of the requirements of the instructions, for, 
though the language of the introductory sentences conveys une- 
quivocally the meaning of a direct gift to the crown in the most 
humble terms, the enacting clause provides that the said sum be 
"raised to the uses aforesaid and to no other use . . . what- 
ever."" It is uncertain whether the governor and lieutenant 
governor ever had any ])enefit from this act. As late as 29 July, 
1700, Bellomont complained of ill usage from the home govern- 
ment in "not allowing me to make use of the £1500 given by 
this province in almost a year and a half's time."* And in Octo- 
ber, 1700, he complained most bitterly that the long suspension 
of this act was being used by his opponents in New York as 
an undeniable token of his disgrace at home.'^ It would seem 
that the delay was occasioned by the solicitor general's office 
in London and that the whole matter of salaries was under con- 
sideration by the crown as late as 21 June, 1700. I'ut the terms 
used in the letter of the Board, 19 September, 1700, make it 
entirely uncertain whether this act is or is not one of those which 
they mention as having declined to give an opinion upon." A 
part, at any rate, of the £2000 was collected, but no full account 



'Col. Doc. IV. 221, 611-2. 
' Ibid. IV. 222-3. 
^Col. Laws I. 397. 
*Co\. Doc. IV. 698. 
"Ibid. 714. 
"Ibid. G67, 099. 840. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 27 

was ever obtained. Apparently what accounts there ever were 
on the subject disappeared when Weaver, collector and receiver 
general under Bellomont, was suspended by Cornbury/ 

Apparently the home government had not reached any con- 
clusion in the matter of an increase of the allotted salary of 
the governor, when, in the summer of 1701, a commission and 
a set of instructions were drawn up for Cornbury ; for none of 
the few alterations made in the instructions of Bellomont 
concerned the matter of the governor's salary.^ Cornbury 's 
first assembly passed an act for a present of £2000 to the gov- 
ernor, which act conformed fully to the letter of the require- 
ments, appropriating the sum so raised to the defense of the 
country in the absence of the king's permission for its original 
application." This act was confirmed by the queen.* But in 
April, 1703, a letter from the queen, alleging the inconveniency 
arising from the custom, forbade a governor to give his consent 
to any law or act for a gift or present from the assembly to 
any governor or lieutenant governor or commander-in-chief, 
and also forbade such persons to accept any present from the 
assembly or any one else in any manner under penalty of high- 
est displeasure and recall from office. By the same letter, which, 
incidentally, was incorporated in all succeeding instructions, the 
governor was directed to take from the revenue £1200 instead 
of £600 as his salary, and the assembly, in consideration of light- 
ening the "customary burthen of presents," was to be informed 
of the queen's expectation "that they would contribute in a 
more ample and effectuall manner to their own safety and pres- 
ervation."^ No further change was made by the crown in the 
amount of the governor's allotted salary during the period under 
consideration. 

No resistance seems to have been actually put forth against 
this allotment by the crown out of the revenue raised by the 
assembly till 1710, when, at the beginning of Hunter's adminis- 
tration, the assembly entered upon a long contest with the gov- 



' Minutes of the Executive Council, VIII. 144, 152, 183-4, 259, 270, 
328. Colonial Mss. XLIV. 51, XLVII. 110. 
==Col. Doc. IV. 885. 
•' Col. Laws I. 508. 
'Col. Doc. IV. 1038. 
'Ibid. IV. 1040-1. 



28 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

ernor and council upon the whole issue of support of govern- 
ment, a contest which, as its development showed, was waged 
upon the abstract question of the political consequences of the 
previous method of support, unconnected with complications of 
personal animosity against the governor. This contest was of 
signal importance for the constitutional development of the prov- 
ince, and the story of it will be related in another connection. 
On this particular point of the amount of the governor's salary 
and the crown's allotment of it from the revenue, it is to be 
observed that one feature of the contest was the proposition of 
the assembly in 1710 to vote 2500 ounces of silver — about one 
half the value of the appointed salary — "towards defraying the 
Governor's necessary expense for one year." Hunter reported 
that in doing this the assembly was acting definitely on the 
notion that the crown had no right to appoint a governor's salary 
out of the revenue raised by them. He exhibited to the assembly 
the clause of his instructions fixing his salary, but all to no pur- 
pose. The matter went so far that the Board of Trade prepared 
bills for parliament enacting "a Revenue of what has usually 
been allowed . . . for the support of the Governor and the 
necessary expenses of government."^ In the final settlement, 
by compromise, of the whole dispute, in 1715, the assembly by 
resolve fixed the governor's salary at the figure named in the 
instructions.^ 

The perquisites were described by Bellomont at the begin- 
ning of his administration as consisting of fees — for passes for 
ships, marriage licenses, probate business and other things re- 
quiring the province seal, — fines and forfeitures, one third of 
the proceeds from seizures of vessels and goods for unlawful 
trade, and presents from the Indians.^ The governor's share in 
the proceeds from seizures was secured to him by act of par- 
liament.* His income from fees became increasingly liable to 
attack on the part of the assembly as time went on, but during 
the period under consideration no act regulating fees escaped 
disallowance in England. Besides, the dispute over fees, which 
was a feature of the great struggle between the governor and 

' Col. Doc. V. 191-3, 197, 285, 287, 330, 333, 359-60, 367, 452. 
"Journal of the Assembly I. 375. 
'Col. Doc. IV. 316, 522-3. 
'Ibid. IV. 316. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 29 

council and assembly, 1709- 171 5, seems to have been rather 
over fees of court ofificers and attorneys than those taken by the 
governor and secretary.^ In the Table of Fees proposed by 
the assembly in 1709 there appear in addition to the fees for 
purposes already mentioned, fees taken at different stages in the 
process of getting a patent for land.^ 

From Bellomont, more than any one else, we get information 
concerning both the amount of salary and perquisites together, 
and the amount of different items of perquisites. He complains 
early in his residence in New York that he does not see how 
he can make above £800 salary and perquisites, and somewhat 
later reports that in thirteen months, outside of salary and pro- 
ceeds of seizures, he has received only £83 : 6, New York money, 
for passes for ships, marriage licenses, probate business and all 
things requiring the province seal,^ and £88 : 9 : 10 from the sale 
of skins received as presents from the Indians. According to 
the accounts of Weaver, collector and receiver general under 
Bellomont, the seizures for the period from 8 June, 1698, to 
25 November, 1700, amounted to £375:13:72-* So that Bello- 
mont's fears, expressed above, as to his yearly income from his 
New York government not reaching £800 seem entirely justified. 
Bellomont was not at all backward in representing the matter 
to the Board of Trade, asserting that he was worse off in fortune 
than when he came, though if he were willing to use the corrup- 
tion of Fletcher he could make the government more valuable 
than that of Ireland, "reckoned the best government in His Maj- 
estie's gift ;" calling their attention to the fact that the intendant 
of Canada gets as much as he himself gets from all three of 
his governments, while the emoluments of the governor of Can- 
ada are reckoned anywhere from six to ten thousand pistoles. 
He admits that Virginia and Maryland, whose governorships 
are worth respectively £4000 and £2500, yield a great revenue 
to the crown, but contends that that very revenue in those prov- 
inces depends upon his own right management of the Indians in 

'Col. Doc. IV. 157, 170, 177, 184, 947. Col. Laws I. 639. 
Mbid. 638. 

' The governor received twelve shillings for every use of the Pro- 
vince seal. Col. Doc. IV. 378, 522-3, 687. 
*Col. Mss. XLVIII. 110. 



30 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

New York.^ We have seen that early in Cornbury's term the 
allotted salary was doubled, but whether this was in direct re- 
sponse to Bellomont's representations, we have no means of 
knowing. Fletcher was accused of having, by the use of all 
possible devices, cleared from £30,000 to £40,000 in his six years 
of residence. He himself said that if he should get all that was 
due to him his net gains would not amount to more than £3000.'- 
Fletcher certainly must have cleared more than that, by all ac- 
counts but his own, but whatever the figure, his is not a typical 
case, for no subsequent governor was allowed the opportunities 
which he so richly exploited. 

A travelling allowance seems to have been made in some 
cases out of the revenue in England. Bellomont accused Fletcher 
of having obtained the consent of the council in New York to 
the issue of a warrant to himself for £130, to reimburse him for 
his expenses on the voyage from England ("notwithstanding his 
Majesty's Allowance of £600 on that account in England.")* 
The minutes of the council show the passage of such a warrant, 
but as yet no indications have been found of the payment of such 
sum in England. Tn the case of Cornbury, we have his request 
to the Board of Trade for "such allowance of tunnage as is usual" 
for transporting his servants and goods to New York'.* And on 
a date suspiciously close to that of his request we have the follow- 
ing: "His Majesty directs that in order to avoid making prece- 
dents there be paid to Lord Cornbury Governor of New York 
£1000 out of the secret service money as of His Majesty's bounty 
to enable him to proceed on his voyage. "° From this it is natural 
to infer that such an allowance at any rate was not usual. And 
it is of interest to note that Cornbury succeeded in the first few 
days of his residence in New York in persuading the council to 
give him a warrant for one half his salary for the period between 
the date of his commission and his arrival in the province, a 
period of eight months." No evidence of a travelling allowance 
appears in the cases of the other governors, and as both of those 



' Col. Doc. IV. 378, 676, 724. 

' Ibid. IV. 451. 

Mbid. IV. 422. 

Mbid. IV. 913. 

°Cal. Treas. Papers Vol. 1701-1707, 2/13 Sept. 1701. 

• Minutes of Exec. Council IX. 27. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 3I 

who succeeded in obtaining it had an unsavory reputation for 
greed, we must consider that it was not a regular feature of the 
governor's support. 

The powers to be exercised by the governor were conveyed 
through, and described by, the commission and instructions. 
The relation between these two documents has been well indi- 
cated by Greene, who describes the commission as containing 
the grant of power and the instructions as containing directions 
for the use of that power, frequently limiting its scope. ^ 

Here it will be convenient to consider the commission and 
instructions together, and inquire to what degree they partook of 
that comparative fixity of character and publicity which we asso- 
ciate with the idea of a written constitution and note some partic- 
ulars of the form in which this quasi constitution appears. 

The changes in the commission were made gradually and 
in the period under consideration were, though rather numerous 
in the aggregate, not very extensive in character. Sloughter's 
commission, which was modelled on Dongan's rather than on 
Andros', was expressed in forty clauses and covered twelve dif- 
ferent subjects. Hunter's commission, which was shorter and 
covered fewer general subjects, showed twenty-two changes in 
all from that of Sloughter, of which some were purely formal, 
two consisted of slight and insignificant changes in verbal ex- 
pression, some were omissions because of changes in the imperial 
system, such as the power to "erect, nominate and appoint Cus- 
tom houses and officers pertaining," and some were the result of 
local development within the province, such as the direction in 
Hunter's commission for summoning assemblies according to 
the usage of the province of New York instead of according to 
the usage of other plantations in America.- Of these changes 
more than one-half were made between the issue of a commission 
to Bellomont and that to Hunter. The commission was published 
immediately upon a governor's arrival, that is to say, it was pub- 
licly read under conditions of some ceremony. Sometimes it was 
read twice, once at the fort in the presence of the council, after 
which the governor and council took the oaths and then pro- 
ceeded to the City Hall, where the commission was read again.'' 



' Greene : Provincial Governor, p. 94. 
' Col. Doc. III. 623 ; V. 62-8. 
'Minutes of Exec. Council IX. 16-18. 



32 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

In form the commission consisted chiefly of conveyances of 
power from the king, the terms used being "we do hereby give 
and grant full power and authority ;" of requirements or direc- 
tions, the terms used being, "our Will and Pleasure is," "we will 
and require you," and of appointment or declaration, using such 
phrase as "we do ordain, constitute and appoint." The form of 
direct grant of power is used in two-thirds of the instances and 
though there seems to be a slight preponderance of the use of the 
phrases of requirement and direction in the case of restrictions 
on popular power, this is not at all certain. 

The instructions showed a very much greater tendency to 
increase in length and to go into more and more specific detail 
and complexity. Sloughter's instructions contained sixty-two 
clauses, which number had increased by Hunter's time to one 
hundred and twelve, and three-fourths of the increase was made 
in the latter's instructions. Sloughter's instructions, like his 
commission, were based on Dongan's, the chief differences being 
due to the presence of an assembly, the encouragement of the 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Bishop of London instead of the 
Archbishop of Canterbury and the exclusion of Papists from the 
privileges of toleration, the limitation of the appointing powers 
of the governor and the specific inclusion of the matter of ap- 
peals to the privy council. Of the sixty-two clauses in Slough- 
ter's instructions, nine concerned the governor and his relation 
to other officials, six concerned legislation, seven administration 
of justice, twelve guardianship of morals and ecclesiastical admin- 
istration, six administration of military affairs, eight fiscal admin- 
istration, three diplomatic affairs, meaning by that relations with 
other colonies, with the Indians and with European powers in 
treaty relation with Great Britain, and two concerned the trans- 
mission of statistical matter by the governor. Of the forty-five 
changes between Sloughter and Hunter, twenty-two concerned 
the conduct of the machinery of government by the executive, 
twelve the legislative part of the work of government, and eleven 
were of a temporary or emergent character.^ The form ordinarily 
used in the clauses of the instructions was that of direction — 
"you are to" or "you are not to," "you are to take care that." etc. 
In certain cases, "particular" care was enjoined ; in the case of 



'Col. Doc. III. C85: V. 124. 



IN NEW YORK^ 169I-I719. 33 

Sloug-hter's instructions, in six matters — the form of grant of 
money as a present, the prohibition of a law or act lessening the 
revenue, regulation of salaries and fees, the frequency of musters 
of the militia, the settling of military storehouses, and the equip- 
ping of orthodox churches with the Table of Marriages. This 
particular care was enjoined in addition on Fletcher in the matter 
of worship according to the Anglican rite and on Hunter in the 
matter of forms of law-making, transmission of accounts, keep- 
ing of entries of imports and exports and shipping and the 
account of the province's supply of negroes. The phrase "Our 
Will and Pleasure is" seems in the instructions to be used for 
much the same purpose as the enjoining of particular care. For 
example, it was used in Sloughter's instructions in reference to 
six matters — the quorum in council, the salary of the lieutenant 
governor, the requirement of a certificate from the Bishop of 
London in preferring to benefice, admission of ministers to ves- 
tries, salary of the governor and the clause conferring general 
powers in matters not covered in the instructions. In succeeding 
instructions it is used in reference to fourteen other matters, 
which, like those already adduced, seem to have reference to 
points in the conduct of government by the executive which ex- 
perience had shown to be important for efficiency. Special stress 
was laid by means of threats of loss of salary, or loss of place, or 
of highest displeasure on the transmission of accounts and laws 
and vigilance in execution of the acts of trade and navigation. 
The instructions i;ecame increasingly minute in directions as to 
conduct of the legislative work of government, the chief objects 
being the prohibition of the passage of certain kinds of acts, re- 
quirement of certain conditions in certain kinds of acts, prohibi- 
tion of insertion of certain kinds of clauses, recommendation of 
certain acts to the assembly, etc. It is worthy of note that in 
respect to all these matters — number of articles or clauses, num- 
ber of those clauses on which special stress is laid, and minuteness 
of direction with respect to the conduct of government in those 
matters shown by imperial experience to be important, there is 
marked development during the period between Bellomont and 
Hunter, and that the commission and instructions in Hunter's 
time seem, more than in the case of any of his predecessors, to 



34 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

embody the results of experience as well as the ideals of the 
empire. 

As to publicity, we observe that by their own tenor the in- 
structions were required to be exhibited only in certain parts and 
to certain parties — the clauses in which the advice and consent 
of the council were required for the validity of some action were 
to be communicated to the council, — and such other instruc- 
tions as should be found convenient for the service to be imparted 
unto them. The former were not very numerous, being four in 
Sloughter's and seven in Hunter's instructions. Practically, the 
instructions seem to have been accessible at times of exceptional 
emergency. On Bellomont's death, his commission and instruc- 
tions were produced at the following council meeting and read.^ 
And in the dispute following, Smith, the eldest councilor, argued 
in objection to the procedure proposed by the Leislerian leaders 
that business men would be slow to risk on the credit of a gov- 
ernment "which they are not satisfied pursues the powers of His 
Majestie's letters patent."- On Lovelace's death, his instructions 
were entered in full in the council book.^ When Bellomont was 
in doubt as to the meaning of the clause giving half his salary 
and perquisites to the lieutenant governor, he showed the clause 
to a "friend or two that are lawyers."* Of course instructions 
respecting legislation, both as to form and effect, became common 
property when use of them became necessary to a governor in 
defense of his course. But, to whatever degree non-official people, 
who were nevertheless interested in the contents of the instruc- 
tions, succeeded in getting knowledge of them here and there, 
the fact remains that the instructions were nothing like the pub- 
licly known document that a modern constitution is, though they 
constituted the most important part of what was actually the 
public law of the province. 

Hunter was the first of the New York governors to receive 
a separate set of instructions relating to his duty in the enforce- 
ment of the acts of trade and navigation. In the instructions 
to Bellomont and to Cornbury a clause appeared, reciting that 
notwithstanding the act of 1696-97 great abuses were still prac- 



' Minutes of the Exec. Council VIII. 211-12. 

'Col. Mss. XLIV. 90. 

* Minutes of Exec. Council 10 :.303. 

*Col. Doc. IV. 317. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 35 

ticed, arising either from the insolvency of the persons accepted 
as securities or from tlie remissness or connivance of the gov- 
ernors in the plantations, and declaring that failure in due ob- 
servance of these laws in New York through wilful fault or 
neglect on the part of the governor would be looked upon as a 
breach of trust and would be punished with loss of place and 
further marks of royal displeasure.^ The same clause appeared 
in Hunter's instructions,- and, in addition, he was given a set 
of "Orders and Instructions ... in pursuance of several 
Laws relating to the Trade and Navigation of . . . Great 
Britain and our Colonies and Plantations in America." By these 
he was required to inform himself of the principal laws on this 
subject, specifying the Acts of 12, 14, 15, 22 and 2^, and 25, 
Car. II, and of 7 and 8, William III. He was to take care 
that his Naval Officer give security to and be approved by the 
commissioners of the customs in England. He was to transmit 
every three months or oftener lists of the vessels trading in the 
province and copies of the returns made by masters concerning 
the contents and quality of cargoes, according to enclosed forms. 
He was not to make or allow any by-law, usage or custom in the 
province repugnant to such laws of parliament as mention the 
plantations, but was to declare such usages null and void. He 
was to assist in all ways the collector and other officers appointed 
by the commissioners of the customs. He was to take care 
that in any actions at law in the matter of forfeitures for unlaw- 
ful trade "there be not any Jury but such as are natives of this 
kingdom or Ireland or are Born in any of our said Plantations." 
He was to take care that offices in courts, "or in what relates 
to the Treasury of our . . , province of New York," be in 
the hands of native born subjects. He was to correspond with 
the commissioners of the customs as to the conduct of the cus- 
toms officers in the province and as to all occurrences that were 
necessary for their information. The rest of the twenty-four 
clauses consist of explanations and interpretations of the laws 
already mentioned and such other laws relating to the same sub- 
ject as had been passed since that time.^ 



'Col. Doc. IV. 291-2. 
'Col. Doc. V. 143. 
= Col. Doc. V. 144-53. 



36 rilASES OF KOYAL GOVERNMENT 

Attempt was made to insure clue performance of his func- 
tions from a governor by the exaction of a series of oaths. 
Sloughtcr was required in his commission to take an oath for the 
due execution of his office and trust, and this oath might be ad- 
ministered to him by any five of the council. Presumably he 
himself took at the same time the oaths "appointed by Act of 
Parliament to be taken instead of the oaths of Allegiance and 
Supremacy and the Test," for he was required to administer 
these oaths to the members of the council, and in Bellomont's 
commission and instructions it was tlefinitely specified that he 
should himself take and then administer to the council the above- 
mentioned oaths. In addition, he and the members of the council 
were required to subscribe the Association.^ In addition to these 
engagements, Cornbury "took a solemn oath to observe punctu- 
ally and bona fide the Act of 7 and 8, William III, and all other 
Acts of Trade."- The council minutes describe Lovelace as tak- 
ing all the oaths and subscribing the Declaration, by which is 
probably meant the Declaration "mentioned in an Act of Parlia- 
ment made in the 25th year of the reign of King Charles the 
Second, Entitled 'An Act for preventing dangers which may 
happen from Popish Recusants,' " for we find the requirement of 
this Declaration mentioned in Hunter's commission. Hunter 
was further required to take the oath mentioned in the Act of 
Succession.^ 

Arrangements for the administration of the powers of the 
governor's commission and instructions in case of the death, re- 
moval, or departure from the province of the regular incumbent 
were a long time in reaching a practical settlement. Till Bello- 
mont's time, the commission provided for the succession of "such 
Person as shall be appointed by us to be Commander in Chief" 
and in case there should be "no Person upon the Place com- 
missionated or appointed l)y us to be Commander in Chief Our 
Will and Pleasure is that . . . Council ... do take 
u])on them the Administration of the Government."* The in- 
structions, however, provided for the enjoyment of one-half of 
the salarv and perquisites during the absence of the governor by 



' Col. Doc. III. 62.S, 685, 818, 827. Ibid. IV. 266. 2M. 
^ Minutes of Exec. Council IX. 16-18. 
' Minutes of Exec. Council X. 266, 513. Col. Doc. V. 92. 
*Col. Doc. III. 623. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 37 

"such Lieutenant Governor or Commander in Chief who shall be 
resident upon the place for the time being."^ And in general 
throughout the period the terms Lieutenant Governor and Com- 
mander in Chief seem to be used practically without distinction. 
When Bellomont v/as appointed governor of New York, Massa- 
chusetts and New Hampshire, his kinsman, Nanfan, was com- 
missioned as lieutenant governor of New York, and empowered 
to execute the powers and directions of the commission and in- 
structions in the case of the death or absence of the governor 
and to follow the directions of the governor of New York for 
the time being during the latter's residence in the province.^ 
Bellomont died at New York in March, 1701, and after an inter- 
val of confusion, Nanfan administered the government till the 
arrival of Cornbury in May, 1702. 

On the appointment of Cornbury as governor of New Jer- 
sey as well as of New York, Major Richard Ingoldsby received 
two commissions, one as lieutenant governor of New York, and 
one for the same office in New Jersey. That for New York was 
dated 25 November, 1702, and it is to be presumed that, as in the 
case of a governor's commission, the arrival of Ingoldsby ter- 
minated the effectiveness of the commission to Nanfan, of the 
formal revocation of which there appears no record.^ Experi- 
ence under this arrangement proving unsatisfactory, Ingoldsby's 
commission as lieutenant governor of New York was, in 1706, 
ordered to be revoked, and he was directed to reside in New 
Jersey.' But for some reason no notice of the revocation of his 
commission was sent to him at the time, and on the death of 
Lovelace in 1709, he succeeded to the governorship. The Board 
of Trade on learning of his accession looked the matter up and 
thereupon revocation of his commission was formally notified 
to him. This brought the administration of the powers of the 
government into the hands of the council, of which Gerardus 
Beekman was president, and, shortly after, an order in council 
was despatched, recognizing him as the head of the government 
in the province and restricting him in the exercise of this power 



'Col. Doc. III. 686. 
- Ibid. IV. 277. 
'Ibid. 1002, 1162. 
'Ibid. 1174-6. 



38 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

in certain matters.^ These are the only instances during this 
period of the succession of the lieutenant governor. 

The only case of the administration of the government by 
a commander-in-chief is an entirely anomalous one, occurring 
at the beginning of the period. As a matter of fact, though the 
terms Lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief are used 
apparently without practical distinction, we have no instance of 
a commander-in-chief acting by regular commission. On the 
death of Sloughter in 1691, four months after his arrival, there 
was no one in the province commissioned as commander-in- 
chief or lieutenant governor. The governor's commission 
directed that in such circumstances the "Council ... do 
take upon them the Administration of the Government and exe- 
cute this Commission . . . and that the first Councilor 
. . Preside in our said Council with such Powers and Pre- 
heminences as any former President hath used or enjoyed within 
our said Province or any other our Plantations in America until 
our further Pleasure be known." This arrangement had been 
incorporated in the act of the first assembly "declaring what are 
the Rights and Privileges of their Majesties Subjects inhabiting 
within their Province of New York."- Interpreting this arrange- 
ment in the sense afterwards explicitly given to it by the Lords 
of Trade, Frederick Phillipse was entitled to preside in the coun- 
cil. His name appeared first in the list of the council which 
Sloughter was instructed to call together on his arrival, and in 
this list as given in the "Documents relating to the Colonial His- 
tory of New York" the name of Dudley does not appear at all. 
Yet Sloughter, on his arrival, describes Joseph Dudley as "the 
first of their Majesties' Council here," and it is known that Dud- 
ley's appointment as "Chief of the Council in New York" was 
desired by the king. Smith says plainly that Dudley had the 
right to preside in the council, and we know from the journals 
of the council that he was sworn on the day after Sloughter's 
arrival.^ Whatever the facts in this matter, the council put their 
own interpretation on the direction to take the care of the govern- 
ment on themselves, and, as they afterwards reported. "pursuant to 



'Col. Doc. V. 80-2, 89-91, 110. 
'Col. Doc. III. 623. Col. Laws I. 244. 

"Council J. I. 1-15. Exec. Council Min. VI. 1. Smith, 130. Col. 
Doc. III. 68b. Cal. Brit. State Papers Domestic Vol. 1690-91, 128. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 39 

their Majesties' Lres Patent (?) did unanimously declare Major 
R. Ingoldsby to be Commander-in-Chief until their Majesties' 
pleasure shall be further known and on the 27th instant (July, 
1691) he was sworn to execute the Powers and Authorities con- 
tained in their Majesties' said Lres."^ By what color of authority 
they took this step does not appear. Dudley's absence from the 
province at the time of Sloughter's death of course accounts for 
his not acting as president of the council, but the directions in 
that case called for the presidency of Phillipse, whose name stood 
next on the list.- It may be that they made a distinction, such 
as was afterwards raised on the death of Bellomont, between 
the right to preside in the council and the right to execute the 
powers of the commission and instructions as commander-in-chief. 
Throughout this period the governor presided at the meetings 
of the council in both its legislative and executive capacity, but 
during the first session of the assembly there are indications that 
the governor and the president of the council were considered 
as having distinct parts to play.^ But this would not justify the 
bestowal upon a person of the council's choice of both the power 
to preside in the council and the power to execute the commission. 
This latter was, in the absence of the commander-in-chief, who 
was plainly referred to as a commissioned officer, to be exercised 
by the council itself. From a technical point of view the "dec- 
laration" of Ingoldsby as commander-in-chief would seem to 
be a coup d'etat quite as much as the assumption of power by 
Leisler. The nearest thing we have to a contemporaneous view 
of the matter is Smith's account, which, after mentioning Dud- 
ley's right to preside, goes on; "but they committed the chief 
command to R. Ingoldslay . . . Dudley did not think proper 
to dispute Ingoldsby's authority, though the latter had no title. 
... To the late troubles and the agreement subsisting be- 
tween the Council and Assembly we must ascribe it that the for- 
mer tacitly acknowledged Ingoldsby's right to the president's 
chair, for they concurred with him in passing several laws the 
validity of which have never yet been disputed." The fact that 
Ingoldsby was in command of the "Independent Companies," 

' Col. Doc. III. 791. 

= Lamb. Hist, of N. Y. City I. 396. Col. Doc. III. 576, 586, 608, 

793, 836. 

^Ass. J. I. 2-3. 



40 PHASES OV ROYAL GOVKRNMENT 

would furnish the party controlling' the "agreement between the 
Council and the Assembly" with just the power they needed over 
a community exhausted but factious. And their proceeding at 
this time was merely a repetition of their action at the time of 
Ingoldsby's arrival before the coming of Sloughter. But the 
circumstances of that time were plainly anomalous and necessi- 
tated a certain irregularity in procedure, whereas, the circum- 
stances at Sloug:hter's death, though unfortunate, were those of 
a government pacified and settled on a regular basis, whose doc- 
uments, the commission and instructions, were now of recorcj 
in the province. The irregularity was apparently winked at by 
the home government, and Ingoldsby held office for over a year, 
till the arrival of Fletcher. But, though the council and In- 
goldsby sent a number of letters to Secretary Blaithwait and the 
Duke of Bolton, there are no letters in the "New York Colonial 
Documents" from the Board or any Secretary to Ingoldsby.^ 
This curious episode was the only instance of the succession of a 
commander-in-chief to the powers of the governor and its anomal- 
ous character has been sufficiently indicated. 

This experience did not lead to any change in the wording 
of those parts of the commission and instructions which provided 
for succession to a vacancy in the governor's office. The pro- 
vince was to pass through another extraordinary experience in 
matters connected with this subject before the whofe was put in 
intelligible order. On the 5th of March, 1701, the governor, the 
Earl of Bellomont, died, and, as the lieutenant governor, Nanfan, 
was on leave of alisence at Barbadoes and there was no one on 
the spot commissioned as commander-in-chief, the opportunity 
arose for the interpretation of what was meant by the "powers 
and pre-heminences" belonging to a president of the council. 
The first councilor resident in the province was William Smith, 
recently suspended from the office of chief justice of the prov- 
ince. The council at that time numbered seven, of whom four, 
all Leislerians, were in the city at the time, and three, Smith, 
Schuyler and Livingston, were at their homes in distant parts of 
the province. Bellomont's whole administration had been a time 
of violent faction and it was alleged that Smith, Schuyler and 
Livingston were to have been suspended on the very night that 



•Smith, p. 105. Exec. Council Min. VI. 40. 



IxV NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 41 

Bellomont died. Whether Bellomont, if he had Hved, would have 
been able, in that case, to restrain the fury of the Leislerian passion 
for revenge, it is impossible to say. He certainly had not been 
crowned with success so far in his difficult task of holding a 
steady course between the "angry party," characterized by dis- 
regard for the imperial trade system, and the "black party," con- 
cerned with a passion for revenge upon their oppressors during 
the Fletcher regime. He certainly could not have kept them from 
a certain measure of their desires. The control of the execution 
of the powers of the commission and instructions was absolutely 
essential to the realization of these Leislerian ambitions and when, 
on the arrival of Smith, it appeared that he interpreted the powers 
of a president of the council to mean that he alone had power to 
call the council and that without him the rest of the council 
could not sit and act as a government, the four Leislerians pre- 
sented views categorically opposed to this interpretation. They 
resolved that, while the eldest councilor should preside at meet- 
ings, all acts relating to the administration of the government 
"should be signed, acted and done by the greater part of his 
Majesties' said Council met in Council and the Government be 
administered in the name of his Majesties' Council," and that 
"when a majority of them should agree that it was for the King's 
service that they should meet and act, they will meet and act, 
giving notice to Col. Smith to meet with them and to preside and 
act as President, which if he refuses they will proceed without 
him."i 

In the vigorous controversy which followed, Smith seems to 
have conducted himself with much the greater dignity and mod- 
eration. His report of the dispute to the Lords of Trade was 
fair. He made concessions, though with explicit reservation of 
what should turn out to be his rights, which showed a disposition 
to do everything, short of surrendering his entire position, which 
might tend to keep the peace till the arrival of Nanfan. And 
he carefully refrained from the attempted exercise of any more 
power than was absolutely necessary for that purpose. The con- 
duct of Weaver, however, who was practically the Leislerian 
leader, was violent, his use of the majority vote, as shown by 
the proceedings with regard to the journal, was governed wholly 

'Col. Doc. IV. 849. Exec. Council Min. VIII. 2ia 



42 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

by partisan considerations ; and his desperation is indicated by 
his attempt to bribe and then to intimidate Smith himself. The 
particular power in the actual exercise of which the Leislerians 
were chiefly insistent that Smith should be "concluded by" the 
majority vote, and over which the two parties came to a dead- 
lock, was with reference to a summons of a session of the assem- 
bly. As to this Smith was inclined to think that the assembly 
had been dissolved by the death of the governor, and, in any 
case, he was anxious to prevent a session of the assembly at this 
time, being confident that the Leislerians intended mischief, and 
having no notion that they would be at all scrupulous in their 
use of power. Nevertheless, though taking the ground that there 
was no occasion for a session, he did, under protest, sign procla- 
mations for a session at the time which had been set by Bello- 
mont, knowing that, unless some proclamation were issued, the 
assembly would meet anyway, and hoping that time might bring 
a fairer disposition or some authoritative interpretation of the 
meaning of the commission. The assembly met, but Smith re- 
fused to sit with the rest of the council as the upper house, 
though sitting with them for administrative business, and after 
all, the assembly passed no acts. It may be that the Leislerians 
lacked nerve in the face of the opinion of "a great number of 
the inhabitants and those of the best sort, too," against the Leis- 
lerian constitutional theory. The application of this theory met 
with another important check in the domain of administration, 
for the business men of the city would not maintain the credit 
of the government unless the method of the latter were made to 
conform to the practice of the other plantations. Fortunately, 
no outbreaks of violence occurred before the arrival of Nanfan, 
ten weeks after the governor's death, and for this the credit 
must belong largely to Smith. Strangely enough, the only com- 
ment made by the Lords of Trade upon this affair was to the 
eflfect that they did not find "that any distinct power is conferred 
on a President separate from the rest of the Council." In his 
report Smith suggested the importance of making the terms of 
the commission explicit upon this point — "is informed that the 
practice is diflferent in diflferent plantations and have not been 
determined without some straine and struggle in all such Planta- 
tions who had never been under the like circumstances of admin- 
istration." Nevertheless it was not until 1707 that in an addi- 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 43 

tional instruction to Cornbury direction was given that under 
such circumstances as have been described, the councilor whose 
name is placed first in the instructions is to take upon him the 
administration of the government and "execute the powers of 
the Commission in the same manner as a Governor or Com- 
mander-in-Chief." This was certainly an effective, though tardy, 
endorsement of the correctness of Smith's reasoning and there- 
after the course of procedure was plain. The council never- 
theless clung to its own interpretation whenever possible, but 
the matter never again became an issue of importance.^ 

As a provincial office the lieutenant-governorship was as 
merely occasional and transitory in importance as the vice-pres- 
idency of the United States, and less useful, actually, under 
ordinary circumstances. He did not even act as presiding offi- 
cer in the council when the governor was in the province and 
in the case of both Nanfan and Ingoldsby, the instructions 
given by the governor left the lieutenant governor in a posi- 
tion of almost quaint impotence.- It happened that the only 
two lieutenant governors who held office during this period were 
officers who commanded the "Independent Companies" ; so that 
there was at least something for them to do. Under Bellomont, 
Nanfan was allowed by instructions from home a salary of £200, 
one-half the amount of the salary of the governor at that time, 
and it was a standing instruction that during the absence of the 
governor from the province, one-half of the salary and perquisites 
should go to the lieutenant governor or commander-in-chief. 
The exact meaning of this arrangement was brought into ques- 
tion bv Bellomont whose duties as governor in three provinces 
and captain-general of militia in five or six made frequent and 
prolonged absences a necessity. He complained that if he were 
considered as absent from New York while still present in one 
of his governments, "every Journey will be very expensive to 
me," and, "at that rate my Lieutenant Governor will have a bet- 
ter' time of it than I shall." The Lords of Trade ruled accord- 

^Col Doc. IV. 859. E. C. M. VII. 213-220. Col. Mss. XLIV. 
90, 98. Col. Doc. IV. 857-9, 887, 867, V. 5. E. C. M. X. 465, 528. 

^For example, Nanfan was forbidden to lodge in the new apart- 
ment in the King's house in the fort, or to permit any one else to do so. 
Cornbury absolutely disdained to give Ingoldsby any instructions at all! 
E. C. M. VIIT. 111-13. Col. Doc. IV. 1162-4. 



44 i'iiASliS OF UOYAl. GO VK UN. ME XT 

ingly that the Heutenant governor should receive one-half of 
the salary and perquisites, only when the governor should be 
absent from all his governments. When Nan fan succeeded to 
the governorship he was informed that he was entitled to his 
salary of lieutenant governor and to one-half of the governor's 
salary and perquisites, and that therefore he was not to pass 
any act of assembly which granted any present to himself.^ 

The situation of the province under the rule of a lieuten- 
ant governor was fruitful of mischief. It was during Nanfan's 
administration that the Leislerian fury was allowed to run to 
the lengths typified by the outrageous proceedings of the Bayard 
and Hutchins trial, though apparently Nanfan did not prove a 
wholly pliant tool in the hands of the Leislerians. Ingoldsby, 
in his term as lieutenant governor, was accused of being wholly 
imder the influence of the lately disgraced Cornbury. These 
possibilities of mischief seem to have been at least vaguely be- 
fore the minds of the Lords of Trade, for as early as 1698 we 
find them instructing Bellomont that he is empowered, if neces- 
sary, to suspend a lieutenant governor and to appoint ad interim 
to that office, as in the case of councilors. And on the acces- 
sion of Nanfan the Board applied to him as lieutenant governor 
the limitation imposed on a president of council, viz., not to 
pass any acts but such as were immediately necessary. And, 
finally, in 1706, the Board represented to the privy council that, 
"as the Governor of New York does most reside at New York, 
and that upon the occasions of his being absent from thence to 
visit the Jersies there is a president and Council in New York 
for the despatch of business there they are of opinion . . . 
your Majesty's service does no ways require that there be a 
Lieutenant Governor of New York." And in 1709 the presi- 
dent of the council was shut f)ff from the two ways of doing 
mischief which experience had shown to ofifcr the greatest temp- 
tations, by a prohibition upon passing any grants of land as well 
as any acts but those that were immediately necessary.^ 

Next in dignity and importance to the governor as a part 
of the executive official system stands "His Majesty's Council 
for the Province of New York." This body had been an import- 
ant branch of the government of the province from the very 

' Col. Doc. IV. 284, III. 68G, IV. 31G-17, 415. 864. 
= Col. Doc. IV. 3G1, 864, 1174. V. 110. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 4$. 

beginning' and had, throughout its existence, the influence nat- 
urally pertaining to a body which had assistant-executive, appel- 
late-judicial and assistant-legislative powers. During the period 
under consideration it was popularly considered to play, in the 
miniature copy of the English constitution, the parts of the 
Privy Council and House of Lords combined ; and in its execu- 
tive capacity the council showed its view of its position by a 
reference in the minutes to the oath of office as that of a "privy 
Councillor of the province." The privileged position of a mem- 
ber of the council is also indicated by an order issued in 1710, 
"on complaints of some members that upon a notion of the law- 
yers that they are equally liable to arrest with other people, 
and some of them have been arrested on vexatious actions to the 
hindrance of their attending on public business." The order 
directed that in case of demand or cause of action against any 
member of the council, before arrest should take place a dec- 
laration should be filed against him and if he refused to appear 
and plead according to the ordinary rules of the court that then 
the plaintiff might take out a writ against him.^ In all three of 
the capacities mentioned above the purpose of the constitution 
of the council was apparently to provide the representative of 
the crown v/ith the assistance and advice, and, in some points, 
the restraint, in the exercise of the powers committed to him for 
the management of the province, which could be afforded by a 
group of men acquainted with its capacities and personally in- 
terested in its welfare. The admission of the representatives of 
the people to a share in the legislative work of provincial gov- 
ernment in 1 69 1 operated of course as a narrowing of the sphere 
of opportunity which might be directly and unrestrainedly ex- 
ploited by the representative of the crown and in this process 
it was the council that lost most. The career of the council 
throughout this period must be estimated in the perspective of 
the extensive range and thorough-going character of its powers 
prior to 1691, with the brief interruption of the years 1683-4. 
In the Charter of Liberties in 1683 an attempt was made to limit 
tlie powers of the governor, assisted by the council, to the task 
of ruling and governing the province according to the laws 
thereof. But by the failure of this attempted legislation, the 

' E. C. M. IX. 16-18. X. 575. Col. Mss. XLVII. 12. L. 30. Smith, 
364-5. 



46 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

council's work of assistance was left to be described by the com- 
mission and instructions and the laws of the province were not 
])v any means the sole measure of direction of the exercise of 
these powers. The sphere of powers and activities assigned to 
the Council of the Dominion of New Enoland by Andros' com- 
mission and instructions in 1688 was exactly the same as that 
of the Council of New York under Dongan. But the brief 
exercise of power by this organization and the fragmentary 
character of our knowledge of its proceedings with regard to 
New York render this period unavailable as a source of infor- 
mation on this subject. 

In theory the composition of the council was determined 
by the crown ; practically during this period the governor had 
the weightiest share in the determination of its membership. 
The instructions to a new governor contained a list of names 
of those whom he was to call together as a council and to 
whom he was authorized to administer the oath of office. He 
was empowered by the commission to suspend a councilor for 
just cause from sitting, voting and assisting therein, and the ex- 
ercise of this power was checked by a clause in the instructions 
requiring the transmission to the home government of the 
reasons for suspension, together with the charges and proofs 
and the answer of the suspended individual thereto. Vacancy, 
by reason of death, removal from the province, or suspension, 
was to be signified to the crown in order that the latter might 
appoint to the vacancy ; while for the crown's assistance in this 
matter, the governor was required to transmit a list of six names 
of persons best qualified for the trust. In case, however, that 
the number of vacancies brought the membership below seven, 
the governor was empowered to choose enough to make up 
seven, these to be to all intents and purposes councilors till con- 
firmed from home or till the constructive vacancy was filled by 
the appointment of some one else. As to the individuals sought, 
they were to be of the principal freeholders, men of estate and 
ability and not necessitous or much in debt, and were to be 
"well afifected to our government." In the latter part of this 
period the quality of "good life" was added to the requirements.^ 
The program thus outlined for composition of the council was 



'Col. Doc. III. G23, 685. V. 124. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 47 

early departed from and for reasons which the home govern- 
ment seemed to recognize as practically urgent. The council 
might be said to be continually in session; rarely was there 
more than a week or ten days between sessions. A quorum of 
five was required by the instructions and, except at certain 
seasons of the year, it was the members resident in New York 
or the immediate vicinity who had to be relied on to supply this 
number. So that, for example, a governor was likely, as in 
Fletcher's case, to waive the requirement that he should make 
appointments ad interim only when the number fell below seven, 
and appoint enough to furnish him with a working quorum, at 
a time when the list of councilors in the province was still clearly 
above the required minimum. Naturally, such appointments 
were likely to be of men resident in New York or the immediate 
vicinity. In the case of the appointment of Heathcote by 
Fletcher, it is probable that the ability "to advance his private 
fortune for his Majesty's service to answer an emergency when 
money was not in the Treasury," and the inability of a number 
of the then titular councilors to be similarly serviceable were the 
urgent reasons for the appointment. The home government 
seems to have taken no notice of the irregularity; but when 
Cornbury took the same measures he was cautioned to keep more 
closely to his mstructions, though his appointments were immed- 
iately confirmed.^ 

The total membership of the council at first varied. Slough- 
ter's instructions named twelve ; Fletcher's, fifteen ; Bellomont's, 
thirteen ; but by Cornbury's time the limit was settled at twelve. - 
As to the representation of the different localities, no prin- 
ciple seems to have been explicitly adopted, but there were always 
one or two from the Albany region, and most of the time one 
from the eastern end of Long Island ; but the bulk of the mem- 
bership was always from the district easily accessible to New 
York City. But even so, the governor experienced much diffi- 
culty in living up to the requirement of five for a quorum, and 
Cornbury urged that attention be particularly directed to that 
feature of the situation in appointments to the council. In 1698 
a clause was inserted in the instructions providing for suspen- 
sion of any member of the council who wilfully absented himself 

1 Col. Doc. IV. 1136-7, 1156. 
' Ibid. V. 470. 



48 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

without just excuse when duly summoned and who persisted 
therein after admonition. And in the instructions to Hunter it 
was provided that if a councilor were absent from the province 
without leave from the crown for more than a year his place 
should become vacant. Hunter suggested the appointment of 
"supernumerary Councilors," but it did not meet with favor. ^ 
There was always a certain element of ex officio membership. 
The collector and receiver general was always a member, but 
the Lords of Trade took pains, in confirming the appointment in 
one case, to disclaim any necessary connection between the offices. 
Though the commission of the Lords of the Treasury to Byer- 
ley, as collector, in 1703. recommended his admission, Cornbury 
refused to nominate him, and he was not appointed till 171 1. 
Bellomont regarded it as highly desirable that the secretary of 
the province should be a member, but this was not the case till 
1716, when Clarke, who had been secretary for thirteen years, 
was appointed. During the whole of the period, the chief jus- 
tice and, during the administrations of Bellomont and of Corn- 
bury, the attorney-general, were usually members. During Corn- 
bury's administration we find Romcr, the royal engineer, a mem- 
ber ; but he was so seldom in the province that his member- 
ship hardly counted. Colonel Quary, surveyor-general of the 
customs, was empowered to be a councilor during his stay in 
each province where his business called him ; but it does not 
appear that he was regularly sworn in in New York.^ Under 
the circumstances of difficulty in getting a quorum which have 
already been referred to, it is not surprising that the governor 
should come to depend on the official portion of the council 
membership for attendance ; though it is to be observed that 
this official element did not become formidable till the latter 
part of the period. 

This brings us to the dependence of the composition of the 
council on the governor's use of his power of suspension. In 
the ordinary course of affairs, when a councilor died or removed 
from the province, the governor nominated a successor, admitted 
him to the council till the pleasure of the crown should be 
known, and sent the name home for confirmation. It is impos- 



' Col. Doc. V. 56, 470, 124, IV. 856. E. C. M. X. 186. 
*Col. Doc. IV. 536, 1136-7, V. 470. E. C. M. XI. 352. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 49 

sible to say how strictly the governor kept to the lists of eligi- 
bles which the instructions required him to furnish to the home 
government ; but it is to be presumed that they were pretty 
closely adhered to, for there appear only three cases of refusal 
to confirm. One was so entirely exceptional as to lack signifi- 
cance. The two others were rejected because they had no estate 
in the province, though they were prominent citizens of New 
Jersey.^ 

As has been indicated, after the province had come down 
to settled ways of living, the usual reason for changes in mem- 
bership was death or departure from the province. But in the 
period prior to the close of Lovelace's administration in 1709, 
there were two occasions when the governor's power of removal 
was used with much freedom, and both of the resulting upheavals 
occurred at the beginning of a new governor's term. Bellomont's 
instructions named thirteen councilors. Of these, one had died 
before Bellomont's arrival, one was "superannuated," one, being 
non-resident, refused to accept ; and when for different reasons 
the governor had, within six months, suspended eight, his nom- 
ination of five new members, which practically re-constituted the 
body, was entirely within the limits of the narrowest interpre- 
tation of his powers. As for three of the eight persons sus- 
pended, he gave as reasons, their complicity in dealings with 
pirates, and as for the other five, he described the act as "abso- 
lutely necessary for his Majesty's service," — they were "always 
resty and perverse in everything I propose . . . always 
caballing and contriving to make the government uneasy to 
me." The truth is, that, as is well known, the Earl had come 
full of zeal for the suppression of piracy and evasion of the acts 
of trade and had early discovered that the council, as well as his 
predecessor, were all pretty equally involved in the scandal. It 
is hardly to be doubted that all of the eight suspended coun- 
cilors had been involved in the "system" ; but Bellomont's frank 
avowal of the partisan-political character of his reasons for 
suspension could easily lend color to the accusations of his ene- 
mies that these removals were upon frivolous pretences, "in 
order to procure Sherififs and consequently an Assembly to his 
liking." It was unfortunate, too, that three out of five of those 



'Col. Doc. IV. 965. 
4 



5^ rilASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

who were appointed to the vacancies were prominent Leisler- 
ians, accused of lacking the estate and financial ability, which 
was considered an important requisite. Nevertheless we find all 
but one of those appointed by Bellomont during his term in the 
list of councilors brought over by Cornbury.^ 

This list was, however, soon disturbed by the second great 
shaking-up in membership. The nearly complete capture of the 
organization of government and the revengeful use of the power 
thus gained by the Leislerians during the interval between Bello- 
mont and Cornbury had led them into a variety of excesses, 
the whole temper and personal passion of which was nucleated 
in the affair of Bayard and Hutchins. Cornbury promptly 
espoused the cause of the' Anti-Leislerians, and with entire dis- 
regard of his instructions, formal and otherwise, lent himself 
to the designs, equally vengeful, of the party which had lately 
been the sufferers. He immediately suspended from the council, 
not only those who had been actively identified with the irregu- 
larities of the trial, but also those known to be of Leislerian 
tendencies. He frankly assigned complicity with the Bayard- 
Hutchins trial as his reason for the suspension, and it was ap- 
proved by the crown. As this reduced the number of the council 
to just seven, there was technically no vacancy to which to nom- 
inate, nevertheless two were admitted and were apparently con- 
firmed, as their names appeared in the list of the council in the 
new instructions to Cornbury in 1703. Cornbury 's procedure in 
the case of these suspensions was so neglectful of the program 
laid down by the instructions, as to defeat his own ends in the 
long run. One of the surviving councilors suspended by him 
was included in the list in Lovelace's instructions, whereupon 
two of the other survivors made vigorous representations as to 
the injustice of leaving them out of such a vindication, and were 
able apparently to satisfy the council that the requirement laid 
upon the governor to furnish a suspended councilor with a copy 
of the reasons had not been complied with and that the facts 
should be represented to the home government. They professed 
that they were neither "envious nor soliciting to be restored to 
that Honourable Post," but only anxious that they "may no 
longer be looked upon as scandalous persons by the Home Gov- 



' Col. Doc. IV. 399, 620. E. C. M. IX. 226. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 5^ 

ernment." Nevertheless in the Hst of the council in Hunter's 
instructions their names appeared "in their places according to 
their precedency they . . . had" formerly, "as has usually 
been done in like cases. "^ 

It is perhaps because of the wholesale changes for partisan 
political reasons, as carried on by Bellomont and Cornbury, that 
we find the instructions, as drawn up in Hunter's time, altered 
to provide for a better enforcement of the requirement of the 
list of six eligibles, for strict conformity to the established num- 
ber of formal membership, and for transmission to the Lords of 
Trade or to the Secretary of State of justification for not enter- 
ing the reasons for suspension of a councilor on the council 
books, "in case you do not so enter them." Whether for this 
reason or because of the abler and more straightforward char- 
acter of the governors who succeeded Cornbury, there were no 
more changes of membership by the v/holesale.- 

The requirement of the commission and instructions, that 
persons nominated to the council should be of the principal 
freeholders, men of estate and ability, and the practical require- 
ment for quorum purposes, brought it to pass that the mercantile 
interest of New York City had a preponderating influence in the 
body. At times this was of serious consequence for the province. 
Bellomont reports himself puzzled "who to recommend for a sup- 
ply of Counsellors unless I should send the names of merchants," 
and the Lords of Trade, probably on his representation, report 
great difficulty in "getting men for the Council free from the 
practices that ought to be reformed." Appreciation of the situ- 
ation does not seem, however, to have made much difference with 
the practice of the Lords of Trade in following the recommenda- 
tions of the governor pretty closely. The council continued 
to contain representatives of the great landed interest, like the 
Van Rensselaers and the Smiths of Long Island ; of the wild land 
and fur-trading interest, like the Schuylers and Livingstons ; of 
the mercantile interest reaching out into land-holding, like the 
. Phillipses and Van Cortlandts ; and of the strictly city and mer- 
cantile interest, like Van Dam.^ 



' E. C. M. IX. 22c, 296, X. 267, 286-7. Col. Mss. LIII. 14. Col. Doc. 
V. 123. 

'Col. Doc. V. 124. 
''Col. Doc. IV. 396, 719. 



52 PHASES OF KOYAL GOVIiRNMENT 

The executive duties of the council were in the nature of 
general assistance and advice to the i;:overnor but the commis- 
sion and instructions specified certain activities of the jrovernor 
as requirinq- the j^articipation of the council in some way or other. 
The consent of the council was required for a declaration of war 
against the Indians on emergent occasions, and that of tl:e coun- 
cil and of the assembly for the making of laws. The advice 
and consent of the council was required for the calling of assem- 
blies, the erection of courts, the issue of warrants for the pay- 
ment of public money, for regulation of fees, for appointing 
markets, fairs and ports, and, in the latter part of the period, for 
commissioning judges and justices of the peace and for execut- 
ing "Articles of War or other Law Martial" on the inliabit- 
ants. The advice of the council was required for action in ref- 
erence to fortifications and in regulations concerning "that free- 
dom which commerce ought to have," and for the granting of 
lands, though in this last matter change was afterwards made so 
as to require consent as well as advice. Finally the assistance of 
the council was required to "find out the best means to facilitate 
and encourage the Conversion of Negroes and Indians" and "to 
provide for the raising and building of Publique Work Houses."^ 

For the execution of these powers the council seems, dur- 
ing this period, to have had no organization separate or distin- 
guishable from its organization as the upper house of the leg- 
islature. Items of legislative business occur in its minutes inter- 
mingled with executive items ; so that, for example, we have in 
the "Journal of the Legislative Council" a record of the approval 
of an answer of the governor to an address from the assembly 
on the subject of amendments proposed by the governor and 
council to a bill from the assembly ; also of advice given by the 
council to the governor to pass a certain bill in the form in which 
they in their legislative capacity have amended it. The governor 
presided at their sessions. Only occasionally, and this not until 
the latter part of Cornbury's term, does the journal give us any 
information concerning the votes of members. - 

The frequency of sessions and the volume of business fall 
oflF very sharply in the latter part of the period. During the 
administrations of Fletcher and Bellomont we find wceklv ses- 



' Col. Doc. III. fi23, 085. 818, 827, IV. 266, 284, V. 92, 124. 
'Journal of Leg. Council. I. 91, 107. 



IN xVEW YORK, ■1691-1719- 



53 



sions in the very dullest times, which were from the middle of 
July to the middle of September, and from December to March. 
In the spring and autumn, sessions averaged two or three weekly 
and often there were daily sessions for weeks at a time. iHere 
was a tendency for sessions to be numerous at the beginning 
of a new governor's administration. The first part of Corn- 
bury's administration shows an increase in number of sessions 
and volume of business over the preceding year and a ha f bu 
there is a decided falling ofiE in the latter part ; while m Hunter s 
administration a lower level is reached than was the casem any 
part of Cornbury's term. And in Hunter's time the busmess 1 
less miscellaneous in character - is easily classified under the 
heads of judicial affairs, land, accounts and warrant-issue. 

^s to compensation by way of salary, we have the testimony 
of Hunter, before the Lords of Trade in 1720, that the council 
"alwavs claimed an allowance as well as the Assembly m pro- 
portion to the Number of days they attended the Publick Service 
[n a Leoislative Capacity, though that Allowance was "ever paid 
them before the passing the two late Acts for paying the Publick 
Debts of the Province." (1714 and 1717)-' 

As to relations between the governor and council m the 
ordinary discharge of business, the commissi^, and instructions 
required that the council should be allowed freedom of debate 
and vote in all things. Cornbury was accused, in letters of com- 
plaint sent home, of browbeating the councilors and not allowing 
Ln. freedom of debate. He informed them of this and, bemg 
ieft to themselves, they unanimously declared their ignorance of 
any such denial of freedom and caused their declaration to be 
entered on the records. The general circumstances of the admin- 
istration, however, rob this formal vindication of convincmg 
power Fletcher was believed by Bellomont to have been guilty 
of undue influence of another kind -"so managed the Council 
here by gratifications of grants of land, connivance at their un - 
LfuAr^de, etc., . • • ^hat on perusal of the Coimc^^^^^^^^^^^ 
I do not find that they would contradict him but joined with 
Lm in almost everything that was proposed to them altho' never 
so extra judicial.- Naturally, anything like adequate proof of 

' Col. Doc. V. 552. 

^E. C. M. X. 250. Col. Doc. IV. 320. 



54 PHASES OK ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

this condition it is impossible to obtain from merely formal rec- 
ords and from the indii^nant letters of Fletcher's successor. But 
examination of the council minutes bears out Bellomont's charges 
of a complete agreement, or — what was for practical purposes 
just as effective — acquiescence in Fletcher's proceedings; and 
of pernicious activity in land grants in which members of the 
council unblushingly participated on a great scale. As to the 
general ])osition of the council in the government, consideration 
may be fitly postponed till after a survey in the following chap- 
ter of the position and powers of this same body in its legislative 
capacity. 

The other executive officials in the province were at first 
wholly under the power of the governor, though the commission 
and instructions, after lodging the appointing power generally 
in the governor's hands, required that removal from office should 
be for cause signified home, and, particularly that commissions 
to judges and justices of the peace should not contain limitations 
of time. The commission and instructions further reserved the 
appointment to offices under the Great Seal of England — "patent 
places" — to the crown, but allowed to the governor power of 
suspension and ad interim appointment, as in the case of other 
officers. In Hunter's instructions the consent of the council was 
required in making appointments to offices connected with the 
administration of justice. All officers were to be aiding and 
assisting to the governor in the execution of the powers of the 
commission, and the governor was forbidden to allow any person 
to execute more than one office by deputy.^ 

With respect to the "patent places," which were, besides the 
councilorships, the offices of secretary of the province, the collector 
and receiver general, and for most of the period the Admiralty 
Court, it is sufficient to observe that the control over the filling 
of these offices was not practically in the hands of the governor 
as was the case with the councilorships. The collector and 
receiver general was subject to instructions from the commis- 
sioners of the customs in England and was more than once at 
cross purposes with the governor. The experience of the prov- 
ince ran through the combinations of a lax governor and a cor- 
rupt collector, Fletcher and Brooke ; a zealous governor, Bello- 



'Col. Doc. III. 623, 685, V. 124. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 55 

mont, and this same corrupt collector ; a corrupt governor, Corn- 
bury, and a strict and active collector, Byerley ; with the result 
of frequent suspensions of the collector and consequent disputes 
over accounts, restorations with new disputes over the new trans- 
fer of accounts, and, in general, an intolerable confusion in all 
financial and accounting relations, which made an important ele- 
ment in the development of the assembly's financial powers. It 
was not until Hunter's time that harmonious and efficient relations 
between the governor and collector became a regular feature of 
provincial life. Bellomont complained loudly of the inefficiency 
of the person whom he found holding office as secretary and had 
evidently made arrangements, in England before coming over, 
to have the office filled to his liking; but his man had disap- 
pointed him. He had high ideals for the office — "should be the 
Governor's right hand man," able to canvass accounts, etc. — but 
he was unable to get these ideals realized.^ Till Bellomont 's time 
it had been customary for the secretary to hold also the office of 
clerk of council, executing its duties by deputy ; and also the 
offices of register and examiner of the court of chancery. But 
Bellomont was very clear in his mind as to the iniquity of hold- 
ing office by deputation, and suspended the secretary's deputy. 
But after the appointment by the crown of George Clarke as 
secretary, in 1703, the offices of secretary of the province and 
clerk of the council were by order of the governor in 1705 re- 
united.^ 

There was comparatively little office-holding by deputy. 
The governors, however, experienced much annoyance from per- 
sons who were appointed in England to office in New York, but 
who delaved their sailing for an unreasonable time after appoint- 
ment. More than once such individuals succeeded, against the 
efforts of the governor, in obtaining payment of salary for the 
period between their appointment and their arrival in the prov- 
ince.^ 

The other executive officials of the province were appointed 
and commissioned by the governor, and the salaries, as well as 



' Col. Doc. IV. 536. 

'Col. Mss. XLV. 116. E. C. M. IX. 78, 300, 502. Col. Doc. IV. 
925. 

' E. C. M. VIII. 286-8. Col. Doc. IV. 855. 



56 1']1ASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

those of the patent officers, were estabhshed on the provincial 
revenue, the governor being" instructed to regulate all salaries and 
fees. The most important of these officials were the Justices of 
the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, Naval Officer, Clerk 
and Messenger of the Council, Surveyor General, *'The Gentle- 
men at Albany appointed to manage the Indian Affairs," the 
Custom-house officers, Public Printer, Justices of the Peace, and 
Sheriffs in the Counties, and the Mayors of the Cities of New 
York and Albany. In the early part of the period there are a 
number of instances of the creation of special offices, usually 
for doubtful or partisan purposes and filled by creatures of the 
governor or of a triumphant faction. Examples of this are to be 
found in the office of Accountant General and of Secretary at 
War, created by Fletcher and filled by the disreputable Honan.^ 
Another example is the office of Solicitor General, created by 
Nanfan at the time of the Bayard and Hutchins trial, when the 
attorney general blocked the plans of the Leislerians by an opin- 
ion hostile to their course. It was filled, significantly, by Weaver, 
the active leader of the Leislerians at this time. At this period, 
also, the office of "Corrector of the Presse" was set up and filled 
by Gouverneur. a personage of partisan significance equal almost 
to Weaver. The office of Escheator General also appears in 
these last desperate hours of Leislerian opportunity. It was 
created apparently for the purpose of facilitating the confiscation 
of Robert Livingston's estate, and at the same time providing 
for one Cosens, another professional Leislerian office holder. 
For all salaried offices the governor found no opposition from 
the council in ordering a salary paid out of the provincial rev- 
enue ; but in none of these cases did the offices remain established 
long enough to make a permanent impression on the official 
system of tlie province during the i)criod.- 

Bellomont's program as general overseer of the official system 
was sufficiently ambitious. "I take a great deal of pains to serve 
the King myself and I will oblige all other officers in the Govern- 
ment to take the same pains in their respective employments or 
I will turn them out and apply home for new ones in their places." 
He did apply home a good deal for office-holding material, his 



*Col. Doc. IV. 421. 

*Col. Doc. IV. 974. E. C. M. VIII. 844, 308. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 57 

opinion of the abilities and iionesty of New Yorkers being rather 
low. He made particularly strong representations as to the low 
state of the legal profession, and succeeded in getting a judge 
and an attorney general appointed from home. The chief justice 
received at first an allowance from the Treasury but during the 
disputes in Cornbury's time arising from the Bayard and Hutch- 
ins afifair, the payment seems to have been discontinued. In the 
case of the attorney general a custom grew up of requiring a 
certificate of ability from the Justices of the Courts at Westmin- 
ster ; but this was not absolutely essential, if the crown chose to 
forego the requirement. The payment of an allowance from 
England seems in like manner to have depended on the favor 
of the crown. ^ 

There are no instances of the control of executive officers 
by the assembly until the struggle over the right to appoint a 
^'Country Treasurer," for the custody of funds raised for extra- 
ordinary uses, outside the support of government. From this 
time, i. e., 1706, on, we find the assembly increasing the number 
of officers immediately dependent on it ; as, for example, the com- 
missioners of the excise, the tonnage officer, officials charged 
with the custody of funds arising in the manner indicated by their 
titles. As for control of the whole executive official system, the 
assembly's attempts in thi^ direction, through its struggles for 
control of fees and for annually renewed grants of revenue, with 
appropriations of salaries, form a separate story and will be de- 
scribed in a subsequent chapter. 

From the foregoing survey it becomes apparent how com- 
pletely the executive system of the province and the office of the 
governor as crown agent were merged. It was true, as a mat- 
ter of abstract theory, that the governor acted in a dual capacity. 
Actually, his powers and his relations with the strictly provincial 
executive officers were such as to be in exercise very difficult to 
distinguish. As the constitutional development of the province 
was inextricably involved with the contests between the gov- 
ernors and assemblies, this circumstance is of profound signifi- 
cance. 



Xol. Doc. IV. 287, 442, 514-6, 1142, V. 599, V. 49, 70, 161. 



CHAPTER III. THE LEGISLATURE. 

The legislature of the province, as constituted in 1691, had 
one body ot precedents as a basis — the representative assembly 
of the last two years of Charles II. In 1683 the Duke of York, 
as proprietor, had, contrary to his inclinations but counselled by 
considerations of expediency, instructed Governor Dongan to 
call an assembly composed of representatives from every part of 
his government, to consult with himself and the council as to 
what laws were fit and necessary to be made. The instructions 
were detailed in character and in accordance with them two 
assemblies were summoned ; the first holding two sessions, one 
in October, 1683, at which fifteen acts were passed, and one in 
October, 1684, at which thirty-one acts were passed. The 
second assembly met in October, 1685, and passed six acts and 
considered four more. The output of these sessions was com- 
prehensive in character, ranging from a Charter of Liberties to 
a Bill concerning Swine. ^ It is probable that the fundamental 
character of the Charter of Liberties helped to confirm the duke 
in his previously expressed distrust of such assemblies and made 
all the mo!e grateful to him the opportunity to remodel the con- 
stitution of the province aflforded by his accession to the throne. 
At all events, the Charter of Liberties, though formally con- 
firmed by him as proprietor, and this confirmed instrument all 
but dispatched to his governor, was disallowed by the same in- 
dividual as king. Hy the new commission in 1686, Dongan was 
given "full power and authority with the advice and consent of 
the Council ... to make . . . laws for the . . . 
peace, welfare and good government of the Province and of the 
people and inhabitants thereof," and was instructed to "observe 
in the passing of Laws that the Stile of Enacting the same — 
By the Governor and Council — bee henceforth used and noe 
other." The legislative activity of the council under Dongan, 
till July, 1688, was comparatively slight but it included measures 
for continuing the revenue, raising taxes, and regulating fees, 
as well as proceedings having to do with more general interests, 
such as naturalization, the christianization of negroes and the 

'J. of L. C. pp. xii-xv. Col. Laws I. 111-177. 

(68) 



IN NEW YORK^ 169I-1719. 59 

adoption of the English language for legal instruments. Of the 
proceedings having reference to New York which emanated from 
Andros' Council for the Dominion of New England, we know 
practically nothing. The assembly called by Leisler, though from 
the fact of its summoning highly significant of the ideals of that 
movement, contributed very little, if anything, to the development 
of representative institutions. The Leislerians professed to be 
guided by the Charter of Liberties but felt themselves practically 
forced to a procedure very far removed in spirit from the pro- 
visions of that document. Our sources for this assembly are 
very slight, but the titles of the bills passed in the brief time it 
was allowed to sit reveal a partisan and oppressive character.^ 
The settlement of the government of New York made by 
the government of William and Mary provided once more — 
and this time permanently — for participation in the work of 
legislation by the representatives of the people. The passages 
of the commission and instructions to Sloughter which bear on 
this point set up again practically the legislative system that was 
authorized by the Dongan instructions in 1683, and show no 
trace of influence from the Charter of Liberties. The only differ- 
ence lay in the requirement of the Test from the assembly of 1691 
and in the omission of the clauses requiring that all laws, unless 
temporary in purpose, be made indefinite and without limitation 
of time, and, finally that laws be agreeable to those of England. 
According to this system the governor was empowered to sum- 
mon general assemblies in accordance with the usage of other 
plahtations, and, with the consent of the council and this assembly, 
to make laws which were to be sent home within three months 
for approval or disallowance. The governor was to enjoy a 
"negative voice" in the passing of laws and was empowered to 
adjourn, prorogue and dissolve the assembly. He was further 
instructed not to pass acts of a certain character and to use all 
efforts for the passage of certain other acts, and the tendency 
was for instructions from home with regard to legislation to 
increase. The whole legislative system may be said to have con- 
sisted of four parts, (a) the privy council in England, with 
powers of confirmation or repeal over the product of the colonial 
legislative activity; (b) the governor in the province, with a 



'J. of L. C. pp. viii-xxv. Col. Doc. III. 369. Brodhead, II. 416. 



60 PHASES OF KUVAI. GuN'ERNMlZNT 

"ncgaiive voice'" upon the measures aoreed upon by the two 
houses; (c) the council in its legislative aspect, performing the 
work of an upper house; and (d) the house of representatives 
of the "assembly," that of a lower house. The title "assembly" 
became a matter of dispute between the council and the lower 
house in the course of the struggle for the right to appoint a 
CountryTreasurer, in the years 1703-6. In the particular matter 
under dispute, viz., the style to be used in the enacting clause of 
a bill, the lower house won its point. The contention of the 
council was for a continuation of the form followed up to that 
time, which contained an enumeration of the participating bodies 
in the phrase "the Governor, Council of this Province and Rep- 
resentatives in General Assembly convened." On this the council 
insisted for the reason, that the general assembly was a body 
composed of these several members, which were jointly the 
legislative power in the province. The council also adduced the 
practice of the parliament of England. The lower house in re- 
ply was able to make the point that in the letters patent from 
the crown "which the House are humbly of opinion is the Meas- 
ure of the Powers of this Government and the Rules of the 
People's Obedience," all reference to assemblies meant plainly 
the representatives of the people. This particular bill was there- 
fore declared to be enacted by "The Governor by and with the 
consent of his Majesty's Council and this General Assembly." 
Thereafter the style usually employed was, "Be it enacted by 
the Governor, Council and Assembly (or General Assembly) and 
by the authority of the same." ^ 

The legislative system in the province, as thus constituted, 
performed the usual functions of representative bodies in that 
branch of the government, affording constitutional means for the 
expression of public opinion on emergent occasions as well as 
for criticism of the general course of the government. The most 
conspicuous occasion when the opinion of the legislature was 
expressed at a crisis of public excitement occurred in connection 
with events just prior to the execution of Leisler. Within the 
first ten days of the first session of the first assembly a series 
of resolves was passed, condemning proceedings under the Leis- 
ler regime and pledging loyalty and support to the government 



• Ass. J. I. 179-80, 185. Col. Laws I. 575-6. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-1719. 61 

as established. Tliese resolves had the concurrence of the gov- 
ernor and council and were published. The question of the re- 
prieve of Leisler and ]\Iilborn was referred by the governor to 
the lower house, which refrained from any expression of opinion 
on the ground that the matter of reprieve was a prerogative be- 
longing solely to the governor. Three weeks later, however, on 
being consulted on the same subject as a means of quieting and 
securing the government, the house appointed a committee to 
confer with the council on the question. At this conference, 
presumably, the advice of the council in favor of immediate 
execution for the sake of satisfying the Indians, asserting the 
authority of the government and preventing insurrections in the 
future was elaborated. The assembly, at any rate, gave formal 
approval, "according to their opinion given," of the action of 
the governor and council.^ Criticism of the conduct of the gov- 
ernment was also expressed on various occasions in the form of 
resolves, usually elaborated under the direction of the grievance 
committee. 

The exercise of the power of final scrutiny of the legislative 
output of the general assembly was formally in the hands of the 
privy council. Practically, the council depended on the repre- 
sentations of the Board of Trade and Plantations or its prede- 
cessors, as the basis of its action. The length of time required 
for communication between the home government and the prov- 
ince enhanced the practical importance of legislation which had 
passed through all but this final stage. The instructions to Don- 
gan, in 1683, required that laws assented to by the governor 
should be held good and binding till the duke's disapproval 
should be signified, and that all laws should be made "indefinite 
and without limitation of time except the same be for a temporary 
end and which shall expire and have its full eflfect within a 
certain time." The Charter of Liberties provided that laws 
should remain in force till repealed by the general assembly "by 
and with the approbation of his Royal Highness."^ The exact 
meaning of this provision, if carried out into detailed application, 
is not clear. As the Charter of Liberties was never confirmed, 
the matter is significant only as revealing provincial ideals. It 
may be that it was desired that the presumption should be in 



'Ass. J. I. 6-7, 13-14. Doc. Hist. II. 374. 
'Col. Doc. III. 332. Col. Laws I. 113. 



62 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

favor of the bill which had passed and that special action by the 
enacting body itself, directed, it is true, by the proprietor, should 
be necessary to change. That this would be no merely formal 
advantage is shown by the difficulty that governors repeatedly 
experienced in persuading assemblies to carry out precise direc- 
tions of the crown regarding legislation. The instructions to 
Sloughter in 1691, as has been indicated, omit the requirement 
that laws be made indefinite, etc. Whether this omission was de- 
liberate and the result of experience, sources which are at pres- 
ent accessible do not inform us. It had been omitted from the 
instructions of 1686, which abolished the assembly, and was not 
re-inserted till the instructions to Hunter in 1709. As a matter 
of actual practice the Board of Trade and the privy council seem 
to have been content to allow the presumption to be in favor 
of the enacted law, relying on the governor to inform the Eng- 
lish authorities of the desirability of prompt action either in con- 
firmation or disallowance. Under ordinary circumstances, action 
of any kind by the home authorities on provincial legislation 
was very slow in coming and was resorted to only spasmodically. 
The government of William and Mary apparently took no action 
on any provincial legislation from New York till 1697, when 
out of sixty-three acts passed since 1691, eleven were confirmed 
and one repealed. There was another burst of activity in 1700, 
and another more notable one in 1708, when seventeen acts were 
confirmed, three of which had passed the provincial legislature 
prior to 1700. There was another wholesale confirmation in 
1709, after which action one way or the other seems to have 
depended wholly on the question of urgency, as represented by 
the governor in specific cases. ^ 

It would seem that the assembly deliberately traded on the 
government's indisposition to take action relating to laws of 
limited duration and cast as many as possible of their acts in a 
temporary form accordingly. Of sixty-three acts, passed between 
T69T and 1697, we have record of action by the imperial author- 
ities on tvv'elve ; of fifty-three acts, passed between 1697 3"<^ the 
arrival of Cornbury, fourteen received attention and three of 
these were not acted on till 1708; of seventy-two acts, passed in 



' Information relating to confirmation or repeal of acts is taken from 
Colonial Laws, which follows Col. Docs, or ancient editions of the laws 
or Fowler's Bradford. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-1719. 63 

Cornbury's administration we have twenty-four confirmations 
and four repeals. Of twenty-eight acts passed in the adminis- 
tration of Ingoldsby between the death of Lovelace and the 
arrival of Hunter we know of only one action — a repeal. But 
this was the period of the first Canada expedition, which de- 
manded of the legislature much activity of a nature not sub- 
ject to cavil. The same is true of the early part of Hunter's 
administration, within whose term of nearly ten years a total of 
more than one hundred and fifty acts was passed, followed by 
decisive imperial action on only six. Throughout the whole 
period acts not of a duration manifestly limited by their wording 
and at the same time not acted on by the home authorities, are 
very few indeed. And the number of acts formally disallowed 
during the whole period was, according to present sources of in- 
formation, hardly more than a dozen, of which six were the 
product of a legislature about whose truly representative char- 
acter there was so much reasonable doubt as to justify the gov- 
ernor's recommendation that its whole output be annulled.'^ 

The crown veto was exercised in anticipatory fashion, as it 
were, by the increasing strictness with which the exercise of the 
legislative power was circumscribed in the successive sets of in- 
structions to the governors. In addition to the requirements that 
(i) laws made be agreeable (as near as may be) to the laws 
of England; (2) that acts levying money and inflicting fines 
should reserve the same to public uses indicated in the act; (3) 
that acts granting money to the governor should follow the style 
of acts of parliament for an analogous purpose in England; (4) 
that no act lessening or impairing the revenue should be passed 
without leave from home, all of which are found in the instruc- 
tions to Sloughter, many others appeared in those to Hunter in 
1709. "Riders" and "jokers" were apparently provided against 
by the requirement that, "whatever may be requisite upon each 
different matter be accordingly provided for by a different law. 
without intermixing in one and the same act such things as have 
no proper relation to each other," going on to forbid particularly 
the insertion in an act of any clause foreign to what the title 
should import, or of a perpetual clause into a temporary act, and 
the suspending, confirming or repealing of any act by genera'i 

' Col. Doc. IV. 999. 



64 PHASIiS OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

words. It was further required that all ])rivate acts should con- 
tain a clause savinj:^ the rights of the crown and of all bodies, 
politic or corporate, and of all persons except such as are men- 
tioned in the act. "And whereas great mischief may arise by 
passing bills of an unusual and extraordinary nature and import- 
ance in the plantations which Bills remain in force there from the 
time of enacting until our Pleasure be signified to the Contrary 
We do hereby will and require you not to pass or give your con- 
sent hereafter to any Bill ... of unusual and extraordinary 
importance wherein our prerogative or iVoperty of our subjects 
may be prejudiced without either having first transmitted unto us 
the Draught of such Bill . . . and our having signified our 
Royal Pleasure thereupon or that you take care that in the pass- 
ing of (any) Act . . . that there be a clause inserted therein 
suspending and deferring the execution thereof until our Pleasure 
be known concerning the said Act." No law for raising any 
imposition on wines or strong liquors should be made to continue 
for less than one whole year. The governor was not to re-enact 
any law once enacted, except on very urgent occasion, and in no 
case more than once without express consent from home. It is 
evident that these instructions, if carried out, would prevent the 
appearance before the privy council of laws bearing certain ob- 
jectionable characteristics. Laws passed after the receipt of these 
instructions still, however, display many of the features prohib- 
ited. The threatened use of the crown's veto as a weapon where- 
with to compel the assembly to pass legislation in the required 
form is another reason for the small number of actual instances 
of the exercise itself. This is illustrated by the experience in 
the case of the act for suppressing and punishing the conspiracy 
and insurrection of negroes, passed in 1712, concerning which 
Hunter reported that it had been found in practice to work 
several abuses. In 1715 the Board of Trade gave Hunter permis- 
sion to recommend to the assembly the passing of a new act for 
the purpose, not liable to the inconveniences complained of, saying 
that otherwise they would be obliged to lay the act before his 
Majesty for disallowance. The act was accordingly revised in 
1717^ The elastic possibilities of the governor's power to use 
his influence, in one way for an immediate and temporary end, 



' Col. Doc. V. 181, 480, 503. 



IN NEW YORK^ 169I-I719. 65 

and in another for distant objects is illustrated by the case of 
the act for the better settlement and assuring of lands, passed 
in 17 10. On this, Hunter observed that he passed it reluctantly, 
because "there was no saving the Queen's right in it," that he 
was induced to pass it by the fact that the assembly was very 
fond of it and he wished to leave them no excuse for not settling 
the revenue ; that since the persons who hoped to- profit by it 
were to remain in peaceable possession till 1713, "Her Majesty 
will have so long time to disallow it without receiving any pre- 
judice by it, if any encroachments have been made on any of 
her lands." In 1716 he again urged that the act be disallowed, 
saying that that would pave the way for a second resumption of 
lands, which otherwise would be very difficult; also that the 
want of a clause saving the rights of the crown was sufficient 
reason for disallowance, though he could give others. In 1718 
the Attorney General gave opinion that, though he had objections 
to it, yet he thought its disallowance would tend to some ill con- 
sequences. The Board of Trade suggested that if the assembly 
would "pass a new act for repealing this whereby the persons 
who purchased under the security of the act of 17 10 may be 
safe and the new law not liable to any other objections, Hunter 
might give his assent, provided there was a clause in it declaring 
that it should not be in force till His Majesty's pleasure be 
known." It does not appear that, during this period at any 
rate, either the assembly or the crown took any further steps in 
the matter, so that whatever harm the Prerogative received,, 
though it had been the design of the governor to purchase a 
permanent advantage by a temporary risk, became in this case 
a permanent loss — a process which had in the history of the 
province more than one illustrative demonstration.^ 

In the comparatively few cases of an actual exercise of 
direct veto by the crown the reasons seem to have been, ( i ) con- 
travention of the instructions, (2) uncertain and dangerously 
loose form of wording; (3) inconsistency with the trade system 
of the empire ; (4) grounds of general public policy. Of the 
last the disallowance of the assembly's act, which repealed the 
law for vacating the extravagant grants of land made by Fletcher, 
is the most important example. It is curious to note that this 



' Col. Boc. V. 181, 480, 503. 
5 



66 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

disallowance of the assembly's repealing act was the form under 
which the merits of the original question appeared for final settle- 
ment by the Lords of Trade, nine years after the passage of the 
vacating act.* 

We have already seen, in the case of the act for a present to 
Bellomont and Nanfan, how the slow, lumbering process of ex- 
amination of provincial legislation by the crown might annoy a 
governor and even mar the effectiveness of his administration, 
by the implication thereby thrown upon the matter of his stand- 
ing at court. An even more serious consequence for the welfare 
of the province, at one point, at any rate, in this period is de- 
scribed by Cornbury in 1704. He suggests that it would be 
proper for him "to have an account what acts of this province 
have been confirmed and what not . . . because there is now 
no footsteps in the Secretary's office . . . nor in the Coun- 
cil books which acts have been confirmed or repealed or neither 
till the list your lordships were pleased to send me and very often 
in hearings before me in Council, the lawyers in their quotation of 
acts, on one side affirm certain acts to be repealed when those on 
the other side affirm the same acts to be confirmed." When, 
however, an act deemed by the governor of critical importance, 
had passed the provincial legislature, every effort was made to 
obtain a speedy verdict from the crown. In Cornbury's time an 
act granting him a present was confirmed in four months. In 
Hunter's administration the act settling the revenue contest was 
confirmed, after considerable opposition, which involved taking 
the opinion of the attorney general, in three years. - 

The governor's "negative voice" had been given him by the 
crown for the express "end that nothing may be passed or done 
by our said Council or Assembly to the prejudice of us. our heirs 
and Successours."^ This power of the "negative voice" was used 
under quite different forms in the first two administrations from 
those which prevailed later, but throughout the period the lack 
of any effective distinction between the executive and legislative 
aspects of the council's organization reduced the occasion for 
direct use of the governor's veto. Under these conditions it be- 
comes necessary to speak of the governor's use of the veto, and 

'Col. Doc. V. 65-67, 71, 82, 143. 157. 

*Col. Doc. IV. 1112, V. 501. Col. Laws I. 508. 

*Col. Doc. V. 94. 



IN NEW YORK^ 169I-I719. 67 

of the relations between the governor and council in the whole 
process of law-making, in connection with each other. In the 
first session of the assembly in 1691, the question of the form 
of signifying the assent of the governor and council to bills sent 
up by the representatives arose, by reason of the assembly's 
discovery that in the case of certain bills returned with amend- 
ments, some contained an assent of the governor and council, 
and others only of the council. On investigating the precedents 
of "the former General Assembly," it was discovered that the 
earlier custom of signifying assent of the governor and council 
was for the governor to put his sign manual to the bills; and 
direction was given that the governor be desired to continue this 
method, "being most consonant to the Customs of England and 
their Majesties' other plantations."^ This would seem to in- 
dicate that it was the assembly's theory that, in form as well as 
in fact, the governor should have two separate opportunities to 
take part in the same act of legislation, viz., the giving the 
assent of the governor and council to a bill, indicated by the affix- 
ing the governor's signature ; and the enactment, enrolling and 
publication of the bill as an act. This certainly was the pro- 
cedure in some cases.- On the other hand, we have an instance 
of a vote of the council in favor of an assembly bill ; the record 
of the governor's signing it on another day. and, on the last day 
of the session also referring to it as one of the acts which he 
has assented to and has passed, and inviting the representatives 
to remain and attend him at the publication of these acts.^ 

The confusion in Fletcher's mind on this point and the actual 
relation between himself and the council are well illustrated by 
the following incident. The assembly had, in July, 1695, sent 
up a bill providing for a present to Fletcher. The council voted 
to "lay it aside," and no further action was taken. When, how- 
ever, at the end of the session, the governor announced the re- 
sults of the assembly's labors, he referred to this bill in these 
words, — "as that Bill was framed he doth reject it," — as incon- 
sistent with his honor, thus giving no opportunity for the council 
as the upper house to bring the question regularly before him 
for decision on the matter of assent and enactment ; on which 



' Ass. J. I. 10. 

'Ibid. 64. J. of L. C. I. 

'J. of L. C I. 52, 55-6. 



68 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

question, indeed, he might require their advice as an executive 
council !^ 

By Bellomont's time tlie matter was straightened out so that 
the procedure inchided the agreement hy both houses to the bill 
by separate vote, which, in the case of the council, was recorded 
as "an assent of this House," and not of "His Excellency and 
Council," as formerly, and then the signing of the bill by the 
governor, in the presence of the council, followed by his order 
for enrollment. This signing was described as "giving the as- 
sent," and was always followed by enactment and order for 
enrollment. This was descril)ed as the "usual form of passing 
Bills into Acts in this province" in 1699.- 

It would api)ear, then, that under Fletcher the governor's 
"negative voice" was used, in connection with his dominating 
personal influence in the council on legislative projects, in some- 
thing like the anticipatory fashion in which the crown's veto was 
used towards provincial legislation in general. Instead of pre- 
serving the appearance of leaving the two houses to arrive at 
some practical agreement on the issue, and then using his veto 
according to his estimate of the necessity of the situation, he 
made a practice of interfering by special message at any stage 
of the assembly's procedure, and lecturing them on their duty 
and on their interest in view of the intention of the governor 
and council to use their power of assent in one way or another. 
Much dependence was apparently placed on the effect, as a last 
resort, of personal interviews between the assembly en masse, 
and the governor and council. This method was successful upon 
one occasion, but upon being repeated at the next session of the 
same assembly, it failed utterly.^ When, under Bellomont and 
successors, a procedure was followed, which separated the assent 
of the council as the upper house from the assent of the governor 
as a third house, this device of the message of the governor to 
the assembly during the course of a session was. in the main, 
used only for emergent occasions. Aiul the governor's influence 
as holding the power of a third house was made effective in 
shaping legislation indirectly, through the medium of the council 
as the upper house and its close connection in this and in its 



' J. of L. C. I. 79-80. 
Mbid. 137-40, 143, 171. 
'Ibid. G2-6G, 71-77. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 69 

executive capacity with the governor. But the governor still 
continued — and" did so throughout the period, — to sit with the 
council when acting as the upper house, and, in case of a tie, 
to give the casting vote/ The withholding of assent, the actual 
form of the veto, was still sometimes confounded with the lack 
of action by the upper house, in the governor's remarks to the 
assembly at the close of a session.- As experience with the work 
of legislation developed, the instances became more frequent of 
the use of the veto, by the governor in an independent manner, 
but they were never very numerous.^ 

The governor's "negative voice" was only one, and that the 
most direct, of a number of ways of influencing legislation. He 
had unrestrained powers in the matter of summoning, proroguing 
and dissolving assemblies. He recommended legislation, and 
action on the governor's speech, as a whole, and item by item, 
often constituted the program of the assembly's activity. We 
have seen what was his actual influence and power in the com- 
position of the council. He had numerous indirect means of 
influence over the membership and organization of the lower 
house. We will consider these later in connection with the de- 
scription of the house of representatives itself, and at present 
inquire into the governor's use of his power over the frequency 
and duration of sessions of the assembly. 

Provincial ideals in the matter of control over the sessions 
of the assembly were unmistakably indicated in the Charter of 
Liberties in 1683, and in the act of 1691, "Declaring what are 
the Rights, and Privileges of Subjects within the Province." 
The former provided for a session of the assembly once in three 
years, "according to the usage Custome and practice of the 
Realme of England" ; and the latter for annual sessions ; and 
both, for control by the representatives,* over times of meeting 
during sessions and over adjournment. Af we have seen, neither 
of these acts was allowed permanently to have the force of law ; 
but, in practice, throughout the whole period, there was but one 
year in which there was not at least one session of the assembly, 
and generally there were two. For the most part the governors 



*J. of L. C. I. 273. 
'Ibid. 155, 234. 
"Col. Doc. V. 357. 
* Col. Laws I. 113, 245. 



yo PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

seem to have exercised tlieir prerogative in the matter of fixing 
the time of sessions in an accommodating spirit, frequently con- 
sidting with the house through the sjx^aker as to what would 
be a convenient date to which to adjourn. The sessions thus 
arranqied were usually held in March or April, and in September 
and October, of each year. Conditions of travel seem to have 
had an important effect on the dates of opening the spring, and 
closing the fall sessions, and "occasions of husbandry," on the 
closing of the spring, and opening of the fall sessions. But in 
time of war, or of unusually critical political interest the sessions 
might prolong themselves into the middle of harvest, or almost 
to Christmas. The usual length of a session was about six weeks. 

It seems to have depended on the idiosyncrasies of the several 
governors whether the house should adjourn itself to the agreed 
date, or be adjourned by the governor. Cornbury always ad- 
journed the house himself, but his predecessors and successors 
seem to have allowed either form indififerently, with a tendency, 
if anything, in favor of allowing the hou.se to conform to the 
program agreed upon. 

Custom as officially interpreted did not at first require that a 
newly arrived governor should dissolve the existing, and summon 
a new, assembly. There were at least two occasions, however, 
when an opinion to the contrary was in evidence, it probably 
being due to a desire on the part of the popular party to find an 
excuse for a new election. On one of these occasions this opin- 
ion was explicitly frowned upon by the governor.^ Neverthe- 
less, as things actually happened, it did come about that, till 
Burnet's time, a new governor was always persuaded to call a 
new assembly shortly after his arrival. The death of the sover- 
eign was regarded as working a dissolution as of course.- The 
arrival of a new commission and set of instructions for the gov- 
ernor from the newly crowned king was, in 171 5, made the excuse 
for a dissolution by Hunter, though such a proceeding had ap- 
parently not been thought necessary under analogous circum- 
stances in Cornbury's time.^ Smith evidently regards this pro- 
ceeding of Hunter's as a pretext and describes him in this action 
as "determined to subdue those (of his opponents) whom he 



• Ass. J. I. 122. 

* Smith, p. 224. 
•J. of L. C. I. 396. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 7I 

could not allure," and was plainly impressed with the success 
of the device/ The governor was able to secure an opinion from 
the provincial attorney general to the efifect that "the Assembly 
being called by Virtue of the Letters patent from her late Majestic 
and those being determined by those from his Majestic" was 
dissolved.- This precedent, however, was studiously ignored by 
Burnet. 

The change of assembly obtained by Hunter through the 
device just referred to, and one case in Fletcher's administration, 
are the only instances out of at least six different attempts in 
that direction of the successful use of the power of dissolution 
for the purpose of obtaining a more compliant body. It was 
usually resorted to when either the governor, council, and assem- 
bly, or the council and assembly, had, in the course of some con- 
test, come to an impasse.^ In one case the governor found it 
necessary to use this power to save his dignity. In the course 
of the revenue controversy, 1709-1715, the assembly attempted 
to disguise its backwardness in supporting the government, by 
pretending a scruple at the fact that the proclamation for its 
prorogation had been dated at Burlington, in New Jersey. 
The governor decided that the "assembly are Resolved not to act 
Notwithstanding the opinions of the Lords of Trade," and fol- 
lowed the advice of the council, "to send for the house and dis- 
solve, which they would otherwise doe themselves." 

There was one instance of the refusal of the governor to 
use his power of dissolution over such an extended period that 
the province generally came to regard it as a grievance. The 
assembly already referred to as procured by Hunter for the pur- 
pose of serving his interest was kept in existence from 5 June, 
1 716, to 10 August, 1726. The continuance of this assembly, 
described by Hunter, as "the most dutiful to their Sovereign and 
the most attentive to the true interests of the Colony that the 
Province could ever boast of," was deemed by him so essential 
to the preservation of the "measures that he had with much 
labor settled for the peace of that country." that he made the 
matter the feature of a letter of advice, which was approved by 
the council, and delivered to Schuyler, who was president of the 



' Smith, 224. 

'J. of L. C. I. 396. 

» Ibid. 311. 



72 PHASES OF KOVAL GOVERNMENT 

council at Hunter's departure. I'urther, on his arrival at Lon- 
don, l:e succeeded in havino; Schuyler particularly directed by 
the Lords of Trade "not to presume to dissolve the i)resent 
Assembly or suffer the same to be dissolved for want of due 
prorogations till his Majesty's pleasure be further known." The 
close personal relations between Hunter and Burnet made pos- 
sible the continuance of all the fundamental features of the 
former's policy, including the relations with the assembly, and, 
though "the continuance of an Assembly after the accession of 
a new Governor was represented as an anti-constitutional pro- 
ject," it was not until "frequent deaths of members," aided by 
the "intrigues of his adversaries" and the clamors of the people 
for a new election obliged him to that course, that Burnet dis- 
solved the house. ^ It is not surprising under the circumstances 
that we find this assembly rebuking suggestions of the illegality 
of their continuance, and quoting the practice of Ireland in the 
matter, and that we hear nothing in the proceedings of the body, 
of triennial or septennial acts.^ Previous to this "Long Assem- 
bly," provincial experience had developed no necessity for any- 
thing of the sort. During the period from 1691 to 1716, there 
were no more than three examples of an interval of more than 
two years between successive elections of new assemblies. The 
average interval was about eighteen months. 

There is but one instance of a dissolution and the ordering 
of a new election by a lieutenant governor or commander-in- 
chief. This was in 1701, when Nanfan, as lieutenant governor 
was induced, probably practically compelled, to this step. The 
excesses indulged in by this assembly, and the discredit put upon 
its work by the crown, deprived this precedent of any effective- 
ness. And the spirit of the direction to a lieutenant governor 
or commander-in-chief to forbear to pass any act but such as 
should be absolutely necessary certainly forbade the use of such 
an important power by a locum-tenens in any but the most un- 
doubtedly emergent occasions. 

In using the power of prorogation, the governors, in the 
early part of the period, seem to have made little distinction be- 
tween it and adjournment. But from the beginning of the 
eighteenth century the practice seemed to be, that a prorogation 



•Col. Doc. V. 534-5, 7(35-9, 783. Smith, pp. 240, 245, 267. 
*Ass. J. I. 442-3, 451. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 73 

put an end to the life of bills, and an adjournment to that of 
committees. There was at least one occasion when the gover- 
nor prorogued the assembly for the conventional reason — that 
"second thoughts and better Acquaintance may perhaps create a 
better Disposition."^ 

We have thus far been describing the crown and the gov- 
ernor in their relation to the work of the legislature, taking 
the fact and the mode of existence of the latter for granted. It 
is now in order to describe the process of constituting the legis- 
lature, its membership, the organization of the two houses re- 
spectively and their relation to each other in the actual work of 
legislation. 

The constitution of the upper house of the legislature has 
already been described in speaking of the executive council. Its 
membership in one capacity was identical with that in the other, 
and, as has already been indicated, the connection between them 
was confusingly close. 

Taking up then, the constitution of the lower house, we 
find that, in form, the governor's discretion in summoning rep- 
resentatives in the matter of the number of delegates, their 
apportionment and qualifications, was only vaguely restrained by 
the commission and instructions. In 1691, these required that 
the assemblies should be of the "Inhabitants being freeholders 
within your government," that persons elected should take the 
modified oaths of allegiance and supremacy and the Test, and 
that the summoning should be "according to the usage," at first 
of "our other Plantations in America," and from 1692 on, "of 
our colony of New York." In general, in the evolution of 
"usage" in this matter, as in so many other directions, the action 
of the assembly was the more prominent feature ; but the co- 
operation of the governor and council was by no means lacking. 

In the matter of apportionment, experience prior to 1691 
furnished useful precedents. The instructions to Dongan for 
calling the first assembly directed him to "issue out soe many 
writs or summons and to such officers in every part not ex- 
ceeding eighteene soe that the . . . inhabitants of every 
part of the said government may have convenient notice there- 
of and attend at such ellection."^ In accordance with these 



' Ass. J. I. 10, 321, 352, 287. 
'Col. Laws I. 112, 121-2. 



74 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

instructions writs were issued to the sheriffs, in some cases 
prescribing a method of choice within a particular jurisdiction. 
For example, the sheriflf of Long Island was ordered to "warne 
the Freeholders to name two deputies for each Rideing" ; this 
as a general direction, supplemented by specific commands that 
Staten Island should nominate one representative, that the towns 
on Long Island should each send a committee of four to the 
Session-house of each riding to nominate two representatives for 
the riding, and that the inhabitants of Fisher's, Silvester's and 
Gardiner's Island vote with the East Riding. By thus using 
the existing organization of the localities as a basis, and adapt- 
ing it by the most practically convenient methods, the sense of 
the directions in the instructions seems to have been carried out. 
At the first session of this first assembly an act was passed 
dividing the province into twelve counties, including Martha's 
Vineyard and adjacent islands, and the Pemaquid region, each, 
as counties. The Charter of Liberties apportioned the repre- 
sentatives among ten counties, on the basis of two representa- 
tives to each county named, except that New York had four, 
and the township of Schenectady, within Albany County, was 
given a representative separate from the county delegation. To 
the general description of apportionment in the act was appended 
these words ; "and as many more as his Royal Highness shall 
think fitt to Establish."^ This division of the territory of the 
province into counties and apportionment of the representatives 
among them is practically identical with the plan of the assembly 
as originally called, organized on a systematic basis and pro- 
viding for the expansion of the representative system under the 
auspices of the proprietor. In summoning the second assembly, 
under Dongan. we have record of the issue of writs only to New 
York, Kings, Queens, Duke's, Suffolk, Albany and Ulster Coun- 
ties ; and, in the case of the asscmbl\- summoned by Leisler, of 
the issue of writs to the same list with the exception of Suflfolk 
and Duke's, and the addition of Westchester.- Nothing in the 
sources which are at present accessible throw? any light on the 
omission, in 1685, to send writs to the other counties. Those 
in the list are certainly the most important counties in point of 
population and wealth ; and it may be that the others were 



'J. of L. C. I. Introd. p. xi. 

' Col. Doc. III. 624. J. of L. C. I. Introd. pp. xiv-xxiv. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 75 

linked in with those to which writs were sent, as was the case 
with Oranj^e County, prior to its attaining a respectable position 
in numbers and property. 

The commission and instructions to Sloughter in 1691, which 
outlined the organization of the provincial government for the 
next sixty years, required the summoning of assemblies accord- 
ing to the usage of the plantations. The persons elected by the 
major part of the "freeholders of the respective Counties and 
places" were also required to take the oaths and the Test before 
being qualified to sit.^ Accordingly, within a few days ^ of 
Sloughter's arrival, we find the governor and council appointing 
sheriffs and issuing writs of election to New York, Kings, 
Queens. Suffolk, Westchester, Richmond, Albany, and Ulster 
and Dutchess Counties, the last two being mentioned together 
as under one sheriff, and, presumably, receiving but one writ. 
The first assembly of William and Mary, then, as at first con- 
stituted, consisted of two representatives from each of the above 
county constituencies except New York, which sent four. On 
the first day of the session, the council ordered the sheriff of 
Albany County to cause an election to be held, of a Burgess 
from the Manor of Rensselaerwyck, so that the total member- 
ship of the assembly stood at nineteen.- The act passed in this 
first session, declaring the rights of subjects in New York — for 
most purposes a re-enactment of the Charter of Liberties — pro- 
vided for the scheme of apportionment that prevailed in the assem- 
bly which enacted it, except that Duke's County appears in the 
list as entitled to two representatives, and that Dutchess is not 
mentioned in connection with Ulster. As in the Charter of 
Liberties, provision was made for expansion of the representative 
system by the phrase, "and as many more as their Majesties, 
heirs and successours may think fit to establish."^ It is to be 
observed that both by the governor and council and by the terms 
of the act declaring the rights of subjects in New York, the 
limitation of the number of delegates to eighteen, as prescribed 
in the instructions to Dongan, was disregarded. But it is to be 
presumed that the action of the governor and council in sum- 
moning a representative from Rensselaerwyck was taken to be 

^Col. Doc. III. 624. 

^ J. of L. C. I. 1. Ass. J. I. 1. 

'Col. Laws I. 245. 



76 rilASIiS OF UOVAL GOVERNMENT 

the act of the crown, till distinctly reversed from home — which 
was never done. The action of the crown in transferring Duke's 
County to Massachusetts settled the question, so far as it con- 
cerned that region. The first four assemblies mention the names 
of two representatives as coming from "Ulster and Dutchess 
Counties" ; after which, Dutchess does not appear as represented, 
even jointly with Ulster, till 17 13. when the council ordered 
that it have one representative, and, in 17 14, that it have two. 
There appears to be no reason for mention of Dutchess County 
in the roll of members in the first four assemblies, and it is 
probable that the lists of the counties which are printed with 
the names of the representatives, at the beginning of each assem- 
bly, are not official. In 1701, Dutchess County was declared by 
act of assembly to be annexed to Ulster County for purposes of 
representation, for seven years after publication of the act.^ 
This act was repealed by the assembly in 1702, and though the 
repealing act was itself disallowed by the crown, this was not 
until 1 70S, when the benefit which came to Dutchess County 
under the terms of the original act was expiring. The same as- 
sembly of 1701, at a later session, passed an act augmenting the 
number of representatives, bringing the total to twenty-five, 
giving New York six, Albany five, and all other counties but 
Dutchess, two each. This involved less expansion of the repre- 
sentative system than Bellomont had proposed to the council, 
viz., an increase from nineteen to thirty, in order "to put it 
further from the power of any Governor to make a party for the 
future to carry on any private end." But even the assembly's 
scheme of expansion was disallowed within a year.- The right 
to send a representative was usually conferred upon a locality 
by the governor and council. In 1698, on memorial from the 
inhabitants of Orange County, the council ordered that a sheriff 
be appointed and a representative chosen, as for the other 
counties. This proceeding, without direct authorization from 
home, was complained of by Bellomont's opponents, as a stretch 
of the governor's power, and an evidence of his design to pack 
the assembly. Orange County being at that time sparsely popu- 
lated.^ In the same year, Albany County was empowered to 



' Col. Laws I. 453. 

Mbid. 478-9. E. C. M. VIII. 39. 

'Col. Doc. IV. 621. E. C. M. VIII. 74. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. yj 

send three, instead of two, representatives, and the Borough of 
Westchester, incorporated in 1696, was empowered to choose a 
representative, thus bringing the total membership of the assem- 
bly to twenty-two/ Here the number remained till 1713, when 
Dutchess County was empowered to elect a representative ; while, 
in 1 7 14, Dutchess and Orange Counties were authorized to elect 
two each, and, in 171 7, a member was admitted from Livingston 
Manor.- This brought the total up to twenty-six, where it re- 
mained for nearly twenty years. It is curious to note that this 
increase in membership under Hunter was apparently made for 
the very purpose which Bellomont's plan of expansion was de- 
signed to avoid, viz., to make it possible for the governor to 
found a party in the assembly. Hunter, however, used this "in- 
terest," when acquired, never for private ends, but for the wel- 
fare of the province. This will be referred to in connection 
with the revenue controversy in a subsequent chapter. Nothing 
could better illustrate the growth of the power of the assembly 
in the interval between the administrations of Bellomont and 
Hunter. 

There was a peculiar feature in connection with the rep- 
resentation of manors, which may be mentioned here. In 1701 
Bellomont reported with indignation that, among other bad feat- 
ures of Fletcher's extravagant grants of land, the privilege of 
sending, after twenty years, a representative to the assembly, 
had been included in three of the grants, and that they had been 
erected into manors. Cortlandt's was one of these, and, presum- 
ably also, Livingston's, for promptly after the expiration of the 
twenty years, i. e., in 1717, we find a representative from Liv- 
ingston Manor admitted to the assembly without action by the 
council in either its legislative, or its executive capacity. Im- 
mediately thereafter a bill was ordered, providing that every 
manor in the colony, together with the village of Islip, be allowed 
a member ; that Suffolk and Queens Counties be divided into 
three counties and represented accordingly, and that no other 
member be hereafter admitted without the consent of the gov- 
ernor, council and assembly. Later in the session, a bill provid- 
ing for the union of Kings and Queens Counties, and the creation 
of a new county, to be called King George County, and its rep- 

'E. C M. VII. 179, VIII. 76, IX. 69. 

'E. C M. XL 167. J. of C. L. I. 381. Ass. J. I. 395. 



78 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

rescntatation by six members, was introduced ; but even under 
tbe circumstances of a close understanding:^ between the governor 
and assembly at this time, 1717, it did not escape rejection on 
the second reading.' 

With respect to the general characteristics of the apportion- 
ment, it is to be observed that the influence of ideas derived from 
the English House of Commons was strong. The house was 
practically composed of county and borough members, the man- 
ors which sent representatives being, so far as crown influence 
was concerned, rural parliamentary boroughs. The members 
were "not the peculiar or separate agents" of the localities, "but 
their quota in the ])rovincial representation."^ There was no 
attempt to arrange the representation of the counties according 
to population. Richmond, Westchester and Orange Counties 
were, throughout the period, very much over-represented as com- 
pared with the Long Island population, Richmond and West- 
chester never having more than one-third to one-half of the 
population of either Queens or Suffolk, yet sending the same 
number of representatives. Of the Long Island counties them- 
selves. Kings seldom numbered more than one-half the popula- 
tion of Queens or Suffolk, but it had an equal number of repre- 
sentatives. l*"or at least one-half of the period, Albany County 
had three representatives to the two from Queens or Suffolk, 
while her population would not quite equal one-half of either 
of them.'' That the Long Island people felt this situation to be 
a grievance is evidenced by the attempt in 17 17, which has just 
been referred to. 

In examining the process by which a general assembly was 
brought into existence, we inquire next into the election of rep- 
resentatives. Taking up, first, the right of suffrage, we find 
the commission and instructions vague in their expressions on 
this point. The assemblies were to be "of the Inhabitants being 
freeholders within your Government." The Charter of Liber- 
ties declared that "Every freeholder within this province and 
freeman in any Corporation Shall have free Choise and Vote 
in the Electing the Representatives without any manner of con- 
straint or Imposicon . . . and by freeholder is understood 



' Ass. J. I. 395, 409, 428. Col. Doc. IV. 823. 
' Douglass, Summary, II. p. 264. 
"Doc. Hist. I. (iS7-699. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 79 

every one who is Soe understood according to the Lawes of 
England." The act of 1691, declaring the rights of subjects 
in New York, contained the same provisions except that "by 
freeholder is to be understood every one who shall have fourty 
shillings P Annum in freehold. "'^ 

By 1699, ^" experience of seven elections, at least one-half 
of which had been "carried with great heat," and all but the 
last two of which had been held under the auspices of returning 
officers appointed by one administration, led to an attempt by the 
assembly to remedy certain abuses in the conduct of elections.^ 
This assembly itself was a partisan body ; and impartial wisdom 
in selection of points for, and methods of, remedy, is not to be 
expected from it. But its features show at least some of the 
opportunities for undue influence in elections. The act, which 
was based on the English statutes (8 Henry VI. c. 7, and 8 Will. 
III.), recited "great outrage, tumult and Deceit" in the manage- 
ment of late elections, for remedy whereof provision was made 
that the suffrage should be the right of persons over twenty-one 
years of age, resident within a city, county or manor, having 
land or tenements improved to the value of £40 in freehold, free 
from all incumbrances, and possessed for three months before 
the test of the writ, and that the sheriff should have power to 
examine every "chooser" upon oath as to his estate. Freemen 
in New York and Albany were to have liberty to vote in their 
respective corporations, provided that they had been freemen 
and residents for three months before the issue of the last writ 
of election, any usage to the contrary notwithstanding. The act 
further provided that on the summoning of a new assembly, 
forty days should elapse between the test and the return of the 
writ ; that the secretary of the province should issue the writs, 
sealed, to the sheriffs, who on receipt of the same were to endorse 
the date on the back of the writ, and, within six days of that 
date, give public notice of the time and place of the election, 
giving at least six days' notice to the constable of each town. 
No sheriff or undersheriff was to receive a gratuity for any act 
with reference to the writ or notice. The sheriff was required 
to hold his court for election at the most usual and public place 
for that purpose ; and in case the election be not determined 

'Col. Doc. III. 686. Col. Laws I. 112, 245. 
^'Col. Doc. IV. 322-3. 



80 I'llASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

"upon the view" with tlie consent of the electors present, but 
that a poll be required, the sheriff, or deputy thereto appointed 
by the sheriff, was to take the poll in some open or public place. 
This was to be done in the following manner : the sheriff was 
to appoint clerks to take the poll, who should be sworn "truly 
and Indifferently to take . . . the poll and to sett Down 
the name of each Elector and the place of his freehold and for 
whom he shall poll And to poll no Elector who is not sworn if 
so required by the Candidates or any of them." Further, the 
sheriff was to appoint "for each Candidate such one person . 
. . nominated to him by such candidate ... to be in- 
spector of the poll," and poll clerks. The oath, which might be 
required of each elector before giving his poll, covered the fol- 
lowing points ; the location and value of the freehold by which 
he claimed the right to elect, that he had not before been polled 
at that election, and that he had not procured the freehold in 
order to gain a vote in the election. The sheriff was forbidden 
to adjourn the poll to any other place in the city or county with- 
out the consent of the candidates, or by unnecessary adjourn- 
ment to protract or delay the election. The taking of the poll 
was to proceed from day to day, without adjournment without 
consent of the candidates, till all the electors present should be 
polled. Copies of the poll were to be furnished to those desir- 
ing them at a charge only sufficient to cover the cost of writing. 
Return of the wTit was to be in the form of an indenture be- 
tween the sheriff and the choosers. For every wilful violation 
of this act, the sheriff was to forfeit to every person aggrieved 
the sum of £30.^ 

Two years later, an assembly under the same party influence, 
passed an act for the regulation of elections, which recited a 
continuation of many and great abuses. It provided that no 
papist, popish recusant or person refusing to take the oaths of 
allegiance and supremacy, as modified by parliament, or the Test 
and the Association, on the tender of the sheriff or either of the 
candidates, should be allowed to vote for representatives or any 
other officer; that any person, otherwise qualified as required, 
having freehold in possession during his life or that of his wife, 
of the required value, should be regarded as qualified to vote ; and 
that a mortgage on a man's freehold, provided the freeholder 

'Col. Laws I. 405-408. Wilson. Memorial Hist. II. 577. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-1719. 81 

were in possession and receiving the income, should not debar the 
freeholder from voting.^ Both of these acts were repealed by the 
assembly in 1702, but the former had already been confirmed by 
the king and the assembly's repealing act was itself disallowed 
by the queen, the latter of the two acts being expressly confirmed 
in 1708-9. So that, though after long delay, both of the acts 
may be regarded as contributing to the election law of the prov- 
ince during the period. No other laws on the subject were 
passed prior to 1719. The numerous and detailed directions and 
prohibitions indicate with sufficient fullness what were the oppor- 
tunities for fraud in the conduct of elections. The estimate com- 
monly prevailing concerning the relation of the governor and 
council to the election of representatives is well represented by 
Douglass : "As the king and his ministry in Great Britain, 
though they do not chuse the parliament yet have a very great 
influence in the choice ; so it is with respect to the governors 
and assemblymen in our colonies.^ Plans to use the official 
influence of the governor and council in elections became matter 
of record more than once. For example, in 1695, the Governor, 
Fletcher, "did recommend to the Council to consider of honest 
men for the next Assembly advising them to use their endeav- 
ours that way." And, in 1692, the same governor asked the 
advice of the council "if it might not be Conducive to the peace 
of the Government for him to be personally present in the field" ; 
whereupon the council unanimously agreed that "it is very nec- 
essary and humbly desire it." There was loud complaint against 
Fletcher on account of this "presence in the field," his accusers 
relating the circumstances of his packing the poll with soldiers 
from the fort, and seamen from the station ship, these men being 
endowed with the freedom of the Corporation of the City of 
New York for the purpose ; also of false arrests at the polling 
place, of threats to imprison opponents of the government's can- 
didates and of undue returns from elections in the rural counties.^ 
The election act of 1699 by no means put an end to influence 
over elections exerted from above ; but it seems to have been 



*Col. Laws I. 453, 523. 
' Douglass : Summary II. p. 264. 

'E. C. M. VI. 137, VII. 133. Col. Doc. IV. 127, 129, 143, 213, 218, 
223. Smith, 155. 



82 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

exercised thereafter with less of ^ross and open violence, and 
in at least a superficially legal manner. Bellomont made very 
numerous changes in the appointments of sheriffs, and his 
enemies reported that the "Sheriffs performed their business 
they were appointed for by admitting some for freeholders who 
were not so, and rejecting others who really were so, as they 
voted for or against their party and by nominating and appoint- 
ing inspectors of the poll who upon any complaint of unfair 
dealing gave this general answer: 'If you are aggrieved com- 
plain to Mylord Bellomont'." Complaint was also made that 
the sheriffs appointed the same day for the election in all places 
except the two most remote counties, "whereby the best free- 
holders who had estates in several Counties were deprived of 
giving their votes at several elections." Both of these elections 
Bellomont himself describes as "very fairly carried," and refers 
to the trick of simultaneous elections in all the counties as "a 
thing purely in the Sheriff's' power to do and cannot be reckoned 
unfair."^ Hunter's influence seems to have been exerted not 
only in manipulation of the polls but also in dealing with the 
assemblymen after election. But nothing like the gross and 
violent interference with the freedom of elections carried on by 
Fletcher appears at this time.^ 

There seems to have been great interest and much violent 
partisanship displayed at the elections. Smith's frequent char- 
acterization of elections as "carried with great heat," and Bello- 
mont's amusement at certain Long Island politicians, who for 
reasons of political convenience had assumed the mark of Quaker- 
ism but in the excitement of the occasion had dropped their dis- 
guise and had become involved in bloody frays, are suggestive 
indications.^ The contests were closer and hotter in the early 
part of the period than they were at a later time. At first a 
change in membership amounting to one-third of the whole 
number of assemblymen was not unusual ; in one case — the 
revolution after Bellomont's arrival — the change amounted to 
nearly one-half. Whereas, in the latter part of the ]:)eriod. a 
change of one-fourth or one-fifth of the total was remarkable. 

• Col. Doc. IV. 507, 621, 8-21. 

Mbid. 419, 429, 515, 534. 537. 769-70. Smith, pp. 107, 224. 240. 
241, 245. 

» Col. Doc. IV. 507, 509. Smith, pp. 156, 158. 162. 173, 223. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-1719. 83 

and the return of all but two or three of the members of the 
former assembly happened more than once. There were a num- 
ber of instances of long, continuous periods of service in the 
assembly, extendin;^ over fifteen or sixteen years. One Colonel 
Jackson, of Queens County, was a member of every assembly but 
one, from 169.2 to 171 5. 

Control of membership in the assembly was shared between 
the governor and the assembly itself. In the hands of the former, 
according to the commission and instructions, lay the power to 
administer the oaths, without which the elected members could 
not sit in the assembly ; while the latter, by legislative action 
determined the qualifications required of persons to be elected, 
scrutinized cases of contested election and expelled members 
when it saw fit. The requirement of the oaths appointed by 
parliament to be taken instead of the oaths of allegiance and 
supremacy, and of the taking of the Test, by persons elected as 
representatives, before being allowed to sit and act in the assem- 
bly, were precise and unmistakable.^ The matter came up at the 
first session of the first assembly in 1691, when the representa- 
tives from Queens County, being Quakers, refused the oaths, 
though indicating their willingness to sign the Test, and to 
engage to perform the tenor of the oaths under the penalty of 
perjury. On consultation of the commission and instructions, 
this was deemed insufficient, and they were therefore dismissed 
by the house, and new writs were ordered for election of mem- 
bers to take their places.^ There is no instance of the governor's 
withholding the oath from any person who appeared to have 
been returned by the sherifif. All examination of anything but 
the face of the returns was made by the assembly itself. In 
swearing in the members, the usual procedure was for commis- 
sioners, appointed for the purpose by the governor, to meet the 
members at the usual place of assembly and tender them the 
oaths, after which the ceremonies of organization went on. When 
a member arrived late, it was a frequent practice for two mem- 
bers to accompany him to the governor, and on their return and 
report to the assembly that they had seen him swear and sign 
the Test, the member was admitted and took his seat. The com- 



'Col. Doc. III. 686. 
'Ass. J. I. 2, 3-5. 



84 I'llASi-S (JK KUVAL (JUXKKN MliNT 

mission and instructions g'ave explicit authority over the member- 
ship of the assembly neither to the house itself nor to the gov- 
ernor, except what was involved in ofTerini^^ them the oaths. 
Nevertheless the assembly exercised the authority fully and with- 
out dispute. The provincial ideal in this, as in so many other 
matters, was expressed in the Charter of Liberties, and in the act 
declaring; the rights of subjects in New York, in both of which 
it was provided that the assembly was to be "judge of the quali- 
fications of the members, as well as of undue elections and to 
have power to purge the house as they see occasion."* 

The practice of the province throughout the period was 
based upon these provisions, in spite of the fact that the acts 
containing them never received confirmation. By the act of 16 
May, 1696, the assembly described the qualifications of members 
of the house so as to require the age of twenty-one years, resi- 
dence in tliC district for which the person was chosen, and pos- 
session of freehold, free from incumbrance, improved to the 
value of £40. But the assembly's greatest activity in control of 
its mcmbershij) appears in the direct examination of the circum- 
stances of the election, and of the qualifications of its members, 
as the cases were brought before it by the petitions of those 
aggrieved. The heat of factious strife within the province for 
the first twelve years of this period gave the assembly frequent 
opportunity for the use of its powers ; and, throughout the period, 
it had little scruple in purging its membership for reasons based 
on its jx'irtisan notions of dignity and propriety. Most of such 
expulsions were made, ostensibly, because of some contempt of 
the privilege of the assembly which had been committed by the 
offending member. In general, this whole matter of control over 
its own membership was treated as a privilege belonging to itself, 
though not in the list of those mentioned by the speaker at the 
organization of each new assembly. In 17 10, Lewis Morris 
gave utterance to some "warm expressions" in debate, on con- 
sideration of which next day, Morris having been ordered to 
withdraw, the asseml)ly resolved that he "has falsely and scand- 
alously vilified the Integrity and Honesty of this house," and he 
was forthwith expelled.^ In 171 5, Samuel Mulford was ex- 

'Col. Laws I. ir2, 246. 
'Ass. J. I. 28:i 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 85 

pelled, "for printing a Speech formerly made to the General 
Assembly without Leave of the House in which are many false 
and scandalous Reflections upon the Governor of this Province."^ 
These are cases in which the personal characteristics of the in- 
dividuals concerned have great importance. The assembly, in 
1701, expelled one Matthew Howell, for writing a paper and 
delivering it in to the house, expressing the views of five mem- 
bers on the pending dispute as to the powers of a president of 
the council. This paper was characterized by the committee 
charged with its examination as "tending to the subversion of 
government."- By the notorious assembly of 1701 three mem- 
bers were expelled for challenging the authority of the speaker 
and of the house by refusing to sit and act with them till the 
question of the speaker's citizenship had been resolved, thus, as 
the assembly expressed it, presuming "to take upon them the 
Judgment of the Qualifications of members and to take notice 
of the Proceedings of the House before they had been in the 
House to observe any Transactions there," — "a manifest breach 
of its Privileges and of dangerous Example."^ On abstract prin- 
ciples the assembly was probably in the right, but the grossly 
partisan proceedings of this assembly in other ways gave it, and 
all precedents connected with it, a bad name. For example, it 
was the custom, in cases of contested election, where the person 
returned was decided by the house itself to fail of the required 
qualifications, for the house to dismiss the person and order a 
new election. Nevertheless we find this assembly, in one of two 
similar cases, ordering a new election, and in the other, examin- 
ing the sheriff's poll and ordering the next on the list to take 
the place of the dismissed person ! And, in another case, on com- 
plaint of an undue election, the committee found that the person 
returned was not duly elected, but that the petitioner duly was, 
and the assembly ordered the clerk of the crown ro alter the 
indenture of the county accordingly ! Election cases were heard 
and determined, at first, by the whole house, with the occasional 
assistance of special and temporary committees. In 1699 we 
first hear of a standing "committee on undue elections," and by 



^Ass. J. I. 372. 
'Ibid. 110. 
'Ibid. 130. 



86 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

1709, vvc find the assembly endowing this committee with power 
to send for persons and papers, etc.^ The questions ordinarily 
brought before the house were such as the validity of a given 
return, the fact of the qualification of a certain individual, and 
the like. 

As has been indicated, the assembly usually proceeded upon 
its organization immediately on assembling, and without waiting 
for the formal decision as to disputed cases of membership. This 
organization was attended with considerable ceremony, in which 
the influence of House of Commons usage is plainly apparent. 
A typical procedure — that of 1693 — is as follows: the gov- 
ernor sent for the members to come to him at the fort (the 
assembly's place of sitting was at first in a tavern, after 1704, 
at the City Hall). He then desired them, if they were in suffi- 
cient number to form a house, to return to their house and choose 
a speaker, to be presented to the governor at their next meeting. 
The house returned, and "after some debates," and "many urgent 
Arguments to be excused," chose James Graham as Speaker ; 
"the House being unanimous all rose up and conducted him to 
the Chair." The house then requested that, on his being ap- 
proved, he would demand confirmation of their "Rights, Priv- 
ileges and Customs." The house then proceeded to the governor 
and presented the speaker, and "desired his Excellency's appro- 
bation," which was accordingly granted — it was never withheld. 
It was apparently good form for the speaker, on his presentation, 
to "make a modest apology." On his presentation, likewise, the 
speaker made his demand for the confirmation of the privileges 
of the house, which was always granted as of course, together 
with the request that they be entered on the council book. The 
governor then delivered his speech, upon which the "representa- 
tives niade a bow and withdrew." At first the speaker used to 
repeat to the house the heads of the governor's speech, after 
their return from this interview, but finally the usage crystallized 
into the form of reading a copy of it.^ 

The first assembly ordered that, in all debates, determina- 
tion should be reached by a majority of votes of the members 
present, and that w'hen a majority of the representatives were 
present it should be esteemed a house. No formal enactment 

•Ass. J. I. 116-118, 36, 87, 95-6, 241. 92-07, 49-50. 

»Ass. J. I. 1-2, 32, 36, 58. J. of L. C I. 47, 49. Col. Doc. IV. 1115. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 87 

of any other rule appears, and it would seem that even these 
rules were not formally adopted by succeeding assemblies. Thus 
informally was custom allowed to develop. No reports of divi- 
sions on proceedings are given on any regular plan. The num- 
bers of each side were occasionally mentioned, but no principle 
appears in the reasons for such mention. Various systems of 
fines for absence from roll-call were tried by the assembly for 
the purpose of obtaining a quorum, but, apparently, with indiffer- 
ent success. 

The committee system of the assembly was in process of 
gradual evolution throughout the period, and could hardly be de- 
scribed as having attained systematic form at any time. The 
committee which sat most often was the "Committee of the Whole 
House," or "Grand Committee," — usually "to consider of His 
Excellency's Speech," always in consideration of supply bills, 
and, in general, for matters of large importance and interest. 
The "Committee on Undue Elections," or "Committee on Priv- 
ileges and Elections" has already been mentioned. The "Griev- 
ance Committee" was the one which came the nearest to the 
present notion of a standing committee. In some form or other, 
we find such a committee in use from the very beginning of 
the period. Sometimes a committee was appointed, "to inquire 
into the grievances of this Province," and to make a report 
within a limited time. Sometimes it was ordered, that all mem- 
bers be a committee of grievances, "to receive and report oppres- 
sions of the people and make report as Grievance may appear." 
In a period when public opinion was excited, such a committee 
was likely to consist of the most active leaders of the majority, 
and its activities might extend to any subject agitating the public 
mind.^ It was such a committee that conducted a kind of trial 
of the persons concerned in the extravagant grants of land by 
Fletcher. We find the assembly exhibiting an accusation against 
the parties concerned, who in time present an answer, to which 
the committee of grievances prepare a replication. The act 
vacating these grants was passed at this session.^ 

The assembly sometimes chose to embody its sense of griev- 
ance in an "Address to the Governor," which would be likely 
to include the subjects with which, at other sessions, the griev- 

'Ass. J. I. 20, 33, 96-101. 
Mbid. 96-104. 



88 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

ancc committee concerned itself. In 17 13, at the height of the 
revenue controversy, the assembly ordered, that they "resolve 
every Thursday P. M. into a Committee for Redress of Griev- 
ances, and every Friday P. M. into a Committee for Reformation 
of Abuses in the Courts of Justice" ; and after a report, three 
weeks later, bills were ordered in accordance with the report, 
and the committee ordered to be adjourned.^ The reports of 
the grievance committee covered every variety of subject, from 
that of the wrongs of the boatmen of New York in having to 
pay dockage for use of the Queen's wharf, to the grievance of 
the province in the erection of a Court of Chancery, without 
consent of the general assembly, and in the appointment of cor- 
oners.- The appointment of special committees on particular 
bills was common throughout the period. The first assembly 
ordered, that for the recess, the New York members and others, 
when they should be in town, be a committee "to examine . . . 
and prepare to report to this House at the next session all such 
Matters and Things whatsoever as may conduce to the good and 
welfare of this government." But we find no repetition of this 
proceeding." 

Beyond the habit of referring bills to special committees, or 
to "the Council or any two of them," or "the Council or any three 
of them." it does not appear that the council had any committee 
organization. 

The officers of the assembly were, besides the speaker, a 
clerk, a sergeant at arms, a doorkeeper and a printer. These 
were at first appointed by the governor, though they were de- 
pendent for their compensation on warrants upon the revenue, 
issued by the governor and council, on address of the assembly. 
Under the circumstances of the failure of the revenue, and the 
disputes over payments of salaries in the times of Cornbury and 
Hunter, the officers suffered considerably ; and we find acts for 
the payment of their salaries, and for empowering the clerk to 
receive a reasonable fee for "passing a private bill." The "long 
bills" of 1714 and 1717 provided for payment of arrears to the 
officers ; and in the resolves, in accordance with which the gov- 
ernor, after 171 5, issued salary warrants on the revenue estab- 



Ass. J. I. 170, a34. 336. 377. 
Ibid. 150-1, 224, 226-30. 
Ibid. 13. 



IN NEW YORK, 1691-1719- ^9 

lished by the assembly, provision was made for these officials.* 
The sergeant at arms seems not to have been a permanent official 
but to have been appointed by the governor, on motion of the 
assembly, whenever necessity for his services developed.- After 
failinP-, at the first session of the first assembly, to establish the 
drawing of bills for the assembly as one of the duties of the 
attorney general, the house seems to have made use of the ser- 
vices of the speaker for that purpose — with what means for 
rewarding him, is not clear.^ 

The council's officers were a clerk, a doorkeeper and mes- 
senger, and a sergeant at arms, and their salaries, as established, 
were drawn from the revenue.* 

Coming to the matter of privilege, we find one curious case, 
which seems to raise the question of a peculiar privilege of the 
council in its legislative capacity. Without going into its details 
it may be sufficient to remark that the council's contention was 
founded upon the notion, that "this house dureing the sessions 
of Assembly was Invested with a greater power as being part of 
that Constitution, than at other times in the Quality of Governor 
and Council" ; that, "in such cases the Governor and Council have 
dureing the Session a judiciall power like that of the House of 
Lords 1n England and can hear and determine civil causes (not 
appealable to the King) and imprison the parties ofifending.'' 
Objection was brought against this proceeding in England, and 
the attempt was not repeated.^ 

The privileges of the assembly, as demanded at the beginning 
of every session bv the speaker, and confirmed by the governor, 
were as follows : ^freedom of members and their servants from 
arrest and molestation during the sessions, freedom of speech and 
of debate in the house, a favorable and candid construction upon 
all words, freedom of access to the governor and council in rela- 
tion to the present service, "for the Removal of all Misunder- 
standings between the Governor and Council and this House; 

' Ass. J. I. 193, 199, 202, 310. Col. Laws I. 815-26, 938-991. 

^ Ass. J. I. 4, 147. 

' Ass. J. I. 512. J. of L. C. I. 34. 

♦Col. Mss. XLV. 170. 

»Col. Doc. IV. 821. Col. Laws I. 392. J. of L. C. L 128-131. N. Y. 

Hist. Soc. Colls. 1869, 179-183. 



90 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

that a Committee of the Council may join with a Committee of 
this House to confer on such Matters as occurs," and that these 
privileges be entered on the council book. They were frequently 
stated in a more abridged form, and summed up in the expression 
— "and all other their ancient privileges and customs." The spirit 
in which the whole matter of privilege was developed is indicated 
in the reply of confirmation made by Cornbury — "that he knew 
them to be the Rights of the House of Commons of the Kingdom 
of England and of this Assembly and therefore he did entirely 
confirm them as large as ever they were granted."^ The assembly 
defended itself against "contemners" of its privileges, both mem- 
bers and others, within and outside the precincts of the house, 
generally by commitment to the custody of the sergeant at arms, 
to whom fees had to be paid on discharge. On one occasion, 
three persons, apparently for insolent behaviour before a com- 
mittee of the assembly, were kept in the custody of the sergeant 
at arms from i8 November, 1702, till ly April, 1703, their im- 
prisonment covering a period iDetween sessions.- One Christo- 
pher Den. for insolent conduct to a member outside the precincts 
of the house, was punished by a month's imprisonment.^ The 
assembly seems to have been somewhat capricious in its treat- 
ment of the matter of privilege. David Provoost, a member, 
petitioned the assembly for his enlargement from arrest for not 
having paid certain orphans' portions, pleading the privilege of 
the assembly, but seems not to have been successful.* An at- 
tempt by the governor to hold up bills which the assembly had 
passed and sent up to the governor and council for assent, till 
the desire of the government had been attained by the passage 
of a supply bill by the assembly, seems to have been regarded 
by that body as an invasion of their privileges — "it being the 
Privilege of this House to send up their Bills when they please." 
On this occasion the assembly seems to have won its point, though 
the imperfection of the journal obscures the matter. Ever after, 
the assembly was strict about the requirement of some action by 
the council on measures sent up by them, and return of such 



■Ass. J. I. 145. 

'Ass. J. I. 153, 156-9. 

•Ibid. 233-4, 236-8. 

* Ibid. 290, 293, 300, 301, 303, 309. 



IN NEW YORK, l69I-l7I9- ^^ 

action to the assembly before proceeding, itself, to do anything 
further in the matter.^ 

In c^eneral, the assembly seems to have made free use for 
its own;urpos;s, of the whole range of parliamentary pnv.lege 
adapting it liberally to local and pecuhar requirements. Hunter s 
:' ntn'was that 'the warmest Assembly of Men in the mo^t 
tumultuous times never strained the word Privilege to that bent 
that they dayly doe."^ 

The oav of the representatives was fixed by an act of the 
first Lse.i?y, at ten shillings per day o^ atten^-^^^^^^^^ 
with the day of leaving home, not more than -f ^ j^^^^^^^^^ 
the meetino- till their return, not more than eight days after ad 
ou ";' The expense was to be borne by the county or city 
endin<. the representative.^ This act was repealed by an act 
of a sembly in 1701, which fixed the rate of compensation at six 
smiir'p r day; but as this was itself repealed by a general 
e tlfn/act, wllch was not disallowed till i7o8^Jhe rate of ^n 
shmin^s prevailed for nearly twenty years, ^oth rates we e 
onkred by Hunter as too high instituting an in«^^^ 
the representatives to prolong their sessions and P^^.^^^ct con 
t'oversls in the legislature, for the sake of ^^e P^ die- ^^^^^^^^^^ 
ance^ On the other hand, the counties were lax or neglecttui 
in the payment of the allowance; and acts for its payment and 
or tl e pLment of arrears, in the case of particular individuals^ 
ver frequently resorted to.^ The revenue act of 1715 P-ided 
To tl payment of an allowance of ten shillings per diem, ou 
ft revenue for the year 1715. This --ngement Hun^r 
honed would be "a considerable ease to the County s, and 
wo Id caut the return of members with instructions to co^^^^^^ 
this Dhn bv an act, and to repeal the former law, which hatti 
been ^ - pe-icious Consequence to the Government and peo- 
ple" Tl^s method was continued in slightly different and vary- 
ing forms during the remainder of the period.^ 



^Ass. J. 1.16, 18,82, 155,214. 

= Wilson, Mem. Hist. II. 595. Col. Doc. V. 179. 

Col. Laws I. 239. 
Col. Doc. V. 179, 19' 

■' Col. Laws I. 586, 70; 

■' Col. Doc. V. 416, 417. 



'Col. Laws I. 239. 

* Col Doc. V. 179, 192, 416. 

.^ ■ T T K^a 709 7Q1 921 929. 989. 

»Col. Laws I. 586, <02, 7Jl, J-i, ^-^^ . j 3-^5_ 

»rn1 Doc V 416, 417. Col. Laws I. 916, 921, JSy yi- ^ss. j. 



92 PHASES OK. ROYAL GOvT-RN MEXT 

The evolution of procedure in the conduct of business within 
each house, and in the relations of the houses to each other was 
a gradual process. The council seems to have gone through 
with its share of legislative business without any elaborate forms 
of procedure. Each bill coming from the assembly received three 
readings, after the first of which, usually, it was referred to 
"the members of this Board," or any three or five of them, as a 
special committee on that bill. If amendments reported by such 
a committee were agreed to by the council, the clerk was then 
ordered to make the amendments in the bill, which was then 
sent down, with the amendments, to the assembly for concur- 
rence. This latter feature of procedure, and the notification to 
the assembly upon occasion, that such and such a bill had passed 
without amendment, were reached only after the better separa- 
tion of powers of those concerned in legislation had been attained 
in the times of Bellomont and Cornbury. 

In the assembly, the governor's speech was normally the 
starting-point of activity. Though satisfied at first with the speak- 
er's repetition of the heads of the discourse, the assembly before 
long, fearful lest "some may have been omitted in the recital," 
began to require a copy, even insisting that the copy be attested 
by the clerk of the council.^ With the speech thus officially 
before it, the assembly proceeded to consider it in committee of 
the whole, item by item, reporting resolves upon each item from 
time to time. Sometimes certain items w^ere referred to special 
committees, on whose report, as upon reports of the committee 
of the whole, bills would be ordered to be brought in. Some- 
times also the assembly voted as to which of the items in the 
speech should be taken up first.- Whether a subject was brought 
before the assembly by mention in the speech, or by petition to 
the assembly, or on a motion by a member, it was usual for the 
body to consider it, or vote as to when they would consider it ; 
then, either to resolve upon it and order a bill to be brought in 
accordingly, or consider it in committee of the whole, and, upon 
agreement of the assembly to the report of the committee, order 
a bill. A bill was always read three times before passage and 
sending up for assent, but at first these three readings might all 
occur at the same day's session. Later, however, it was more 

' Ass. J. I. 36, 55. 
'Ass. J. I. 93, 160-1. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-1719. 93 

customary for a bill to be referred to a special committee after 
the first or second reading-, and for the amendments reported by 
this committee to be acted upon, before the bill >vas ordered to 
be engrossed. This engrossed bill was then given a third read- 
ing, a'iid ordered to be sent up to the council "for their con- 
currence." It sometimes happened that a bill was referred to 
three different committees, before a report satisfactory to the 
assembly could be obtained. And there might be several commit- 
tees at work upon different aspects of the same subject, the re- 
ports of all being made use of, when the committee of the whole 
reported resolves, upon which the bill was constructed.^ In the 
early part of the period a case arose of a committee feeling itself 
in difificulty and calling in the speaker to its assistance.=^ This 
feeling of inexperience, at first at any rate, made it necessary that 
the speaker should be ehher a lawyer, as was the case with Gra- 
ham and Nicolls, who, with two very brief exceptions, were the 
only persons holding the office of speaker for the first thirty 
years ; or a person in the position of an unquestioned party leader, 
as was Gouverneur, during his speakership in 1 700-1 701. The 
assembly, at its first session in 1691. tried to make use of the 
attorney general's services in drawing bills, and the governor at 
first acquiesced. But on his later decision that, according to the 
instructions, this was no part of the attorney general's duties, 
the assembly laid the services of the speaker under contribution, 
addressing the governor and council for special compensation for 
him. Later, however, that is, m Cornbury's time, the attorney 
general drew bills for the assembly, and in the "long bill" of 
1714 for payment of the public debts, we find an item in favor 
of Lewis Morris for services in this matter.^^ 

In its relations with the council, the assembly was inclined 
to be strict in requiring decisive action by the council on an as- 
sembly bill, before proceeding in response to suggestions by the 
governor upon new or different legislation on the same subject.* 
The sessions of both houses were private, but they kept track 
of each other's proceedings to an extent, the governor and council 
receiving the printed proceedings of the assembly each day, and 

'Ass. J. I. 314-17, 137, 140, 142, 148-9, 261. 

""Ibid. 29. 

^Ass. J. I. 5-12, 41-46, 166. J. of L. C. I. 34. Col. Laws I. 962. 

* Ass. J. I. 82, 155. 



94 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

occasionally sending messages urging action ; while the assembly 
might appoint a committee to inspect the council journal and 
report what action had been taken on bills sent up. and, as a result, 
address the council on the subject of favorite measures.^ Occa- 
sionally the governor wrote to the speaker, asking him to urge 
certain measures on the assembly. Agreement or disagreement 
with bills or amendments was signified by messages which were 
sent back and forth between the houses, and differences were 
adjusted at conferences, both formal and free. The assembly 
occasionally developed great scruple about keeping to the subject- 
matter for which a conference was appointed, and on one of 
the occasions when it was opposing the council's right to amend 
money bills, refused to go into conference on such a bill.^ There 
seems to have been no attempt on the part of the assembly to 
deny the right of the council to initiate legislation, nevertheless 
the right was not exercised very vigorously. For some purposes, 
even, a conference between committees from each house consti- 
tuted the initial step in legislation. This was frequently the case 
with bills for supply for military purposes ; and, at the time of 
the Canada expeditions of 1709 and 171 1, such a joint committee 
was kept almost continuously in existence to facilitate the work 
of preparation.^ The council's right to amend money bills was, 
however, denied by the assembly, beginning with 1703 during 
the struggle for the appointment of a Colony Treasurer. This 
was an unprecedented stand for the assembly to take, and was 
resented by the council, which was able to cite many instances 
of a contrary practice in the previous history of the province. 
It was also formally condemned by the Lords of Trade. The 
assembly, however, had its way in the matter, and did not hesi- 
tate at the inconsistency of resolving, upon occasion, that such 
and such a bill, amendments to which by the council it was 
willing to consider, was not to be considered a money bill. In 
one case, a bill raising and authorizing the payment of public 
money was so treated.'' 

This brings us to the comparative position of the council and 
assembly in the government. Contemporary estimates on this 

• Ass. J. I. 72-3, 287. 254, 319. Smith, p. 365. 
'Ass. J. I. 72-3, 327. 

' Ibid. 48. 247. 

* Ass. J. I. 157-215. J. of L. C. I. 189-245. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 95 

point are conflicting. The local magnate character of the council 
has been referred to. The membership, as a whole, was fairly 
representative of the leading classes in the political life of the 
province. Opinion as to the general character of the membership 
of the assembly seems to have been unfavorable. Golden and 
Smith agree in emphasizing the features of ignorance, even illit- 
eracy, and the predominance of a narrowly local point of view 
on public questions. Colden's views as to their integrity were 
equally pessimistic. "When Mr. Hunter came to his govern- 
ment," says Golden, "he thought that an American Assembly 
might be governed by reason, but experience taught him that it 
was a vain imagination. It may be a question whether man- 
kind in general can be governed otherwise than by their affec- 
tions. For that reason wise legislators found means to raise 
artificial affections to control the natural." Hunter's system of 
relations with the members of the Assembly, by means of which 
he brought the revenue question and questions allied with it in 
his time to a settlement, would seem to have been in Golden's 
mind when he wrote as above, for he relates with great gusto 
Hunter's indignation at being obliged "to rake in the dunghill of 
these people's vile affections."^ 

Opinions as to the position and influence of the council in 
the government vary with the circumstances of the province, and 
with the point of view of the observer. Golonel Quary expresses 
the opinion in 1709, that "the Generality of the Gouncils being 
Gentlemen of the Gountry are wholly in the interest of the as- 
sembly and as ready to lessen the Prerogative in all things as 
they are."" This was from a zealous imperial official, at a time 
when the governor, Gornbury, had succeeded in alienating all 
elements in turn, and had practically compelled them to unite 
against him and crowd him out, by displaying to the home gov- 
ernment the impossibility of co-operating with him. Hunter, on 
the other hand, a governor who was personally popular, and who 
had an ambition to make local-provincial and general-imperial 
interests serve each other, found ready support in the council 
against the assembly's attempt to settle the revenue in a manner 
contrary to the instructions. He testifies in behalf of the council 
that he must "do them the justice to declare that I think that it 



'Smith, 371. N. Y. H. S. Colls. 1868, 205-6. 
= Col. Doc. V. 116. 



y6 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

is not possible for men in their station to behave with more virtue 
and resokition with regard to H. M. Right and Prerogative" — 
with the exception of one member.^ On the whole, Greene's 
summary statement for the colonies in general would seem to 
describe the situation in New York during this period — "although 
it would be a mistake to suppose that the Council was always 
or necessarily under the control of the Governor yet ... it 
was usually on the Governor's side in his contests with the As- 
sembly, exercising on the whole a conservative influence."^ 

The marked development of the powers of the assembly, as 
manifested in the struggle for control of expenditure, which is 
described in a later chapter, wrought great change in the com- 
parative position of the two houses. The imperious necessity for 
a working relation between the governor and the revenue-grant- 
ing body, coming out with particular clearness in Hunter's time, 
directed to the proceedings of the assembly much of the atten- 
tion and manipulation, of which, till then, the council had had 
the greater share. The activity in the assembly, which was kept 
up by such men as Morris and Livingston — both of them men of 
council calibre — together with their relation with the governor 
in the capacity of leaders in the assembly affords eloquent testi- 
mony to the increased significance of the lower house. The 
mediocre character of its average membership would render that 
body peculiarly susceptible to the "management" of men of lead- 
ing capacity, who chose to develop the possibilities of a relation 
between the governor and the representatives of the community 
at large, as against the class interests so effectively intrenched 
in the council. This development seems to have been going on 
during that portion of Hunter's administration which succeeded 
the passage of the revenue act in 1715. We have unmistakable 
testimony from such competent observers as George Qarke and 
Lewis Morris, Jr., of the decline of the council's power during 
this time. And it was not until the separation of the council's 
executive, from its legislative functions, was accomplished by 
the removal in 1736 of the governor from the presidency of the 
legislative council, that anything like a restoration of the council 
to its former position was achieved. 



'Col. Doc. V. 185. 

^ Greene : Provincial Governor p. 90. 



CHAPTER IV. FINANCIAL AFFAIRS BEFORE 1709. 

It was peculiarly true of New York that the conduct of 
finance in its dynamic aspect was intimately associated with the 
constitutional history of the province. Contest over its manage- 
ment was perennial, and it was in terms of this struggle that 
many other contests in the first stage of full-fledged provincial 
existence finally came to be settled. It was the contest through 
which the province groped to political self-consciousness and to 
an activity in which the issues were of a higher order than those 
of factional hatred or personal intrigue. It was constant, pro- 
gressive development of this department of activity which finally 
brought the power of the crown, wielded by a governor person- 
ally popular and estimable, face to face with the local provincial 
power in such a way as to force a compromise. 

The ideal of the prerogative party, as contained in the com- 
mission and instructions and in the governor's addresses to the 
assembly, was that the assemljly should raise money for public 
purposes and that this should be expended under the direction of 
tlie governor and council. The ideal of the '"country party,'" 
like the party itself, was only gradually conceived and developed. 
Till the disposition to use the public policy of the province as an 
opportunity to give vent to manifestations of extreme partisan 
violence was outgrown or relegated to the background, there could 
be no political force possessed of the steadiness of aim and con- 
stancy of composition which were required to constitute a patri- 
otic opposition. As thus gradually conceived and developed, the 
program of resistance to the government ideal was centred on 
the acquisition of increasing power over expenditure by the as- 
sembly. In the course of this struggle the assembly freely used 
its recognized power of the purse as a weapon for gaining further 
advantage. The struggle over control of expenditure was long 
in shaping itself. When it had finally attained recognizable 
form, the prerogative party made no attempt to deny the taxing 
power in all its fullness as possessed by the assembly. But by 
keeping control of the regulation of the fee system and by at- 
tempting to develop the crown's territorial revenue as a source 
7 (97) 



98 PIIASliS OF ROYAL GOVliRN MKNT 

of supply beyond the assembly's reach, they tried to neutralize 
the revenue-raisingf power of the assembly in reference to the 
support of government, while resisting all attempts by the latter 
body to reserve control of expenditure to itself. The final result 
of the struggle was practically a victory for the assembly, inas- 
much as, whatever the forms traversed, substantial control of 
expenditure of all important items of income for the usual pub- 
lic purposes was achieved. This process, when finally completed, 
involved a balance of constitutional forces actually effective within 
the province, which constituted a compromise that was to an 
extent inconsistent with the imperial idea of a royal province. 
The process, as has been hinted, was long. Not until nearly 
thirty years after the settlement of 169 1 was an equilibrium of 
any stability reached. Two stages may be recognized in the 
process. The period from 1691 to 1709 was one in which the 
attempt of the lower house to attain greater control over ex- 
penditure was carried on against heavy odds. With blind ab- 
sorption in the partisan aspects of politics, the grants by the 
assembly of revenue for the constant charges of government were 
made for periods far in advance of the time of passage of the 
acts, in order to gain the governor's complaisance in party legis- 
lation. Hence, till the expiration of these grants in 1709, there 
was no opi^ortunity to realize the potentialities of the assembly 
in enforcing its program. This semi-paralysis was improved to 
advance the personal interests of a small group of unscrupulous 
characters surrounding the inefficient Cornbury — to the conse- 
quent ruin of the credit of the government. The second stage 
is occupied with a direct controversy between a governor who 
was personally esteemed in the province, an "Empire-builder" of 
sagacious views, and the assembly. That body was moved by 
resentment at the destruction of public credit already accom- 
plished, by the conviction that the disaster was chargeable to 
the system as well as to its perversion by individuals and by 
a resolution against any arrangement for the future which could 
possibly permit of a repetition of the catastrophe. The contro- 
versy was settled by an exceedingly complex compromise, one of 
the important features of which was the removal, to a hopeful 
degree, of the most harmful phases of Leislerian faction from 
the domain of politics. It was in the course of the evolution of 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 99 

arrangements which were designed to protect this settlement that 
a new balanced system of provincial forces acquired momentum. 
In reviewing the financial system of the province during the 
period from 1691 to 1709, — the stage of preparation and educa- 
tion as it were, — it will be convenient to consider the sources and 
method of provision of revenue of various kinds, and then the 
method of expenditure, giving particular attention to attempts 
by the assembly to secure increasing control of the latter. The 
passages in the commission and instructions bearing on public 
income are concerned chiefly with the forms to be used in granting 
money, and apparently take for granted the control of the taxing 
and money-granting power by the assembly. Those who were 
animated by provincial ideals would have had the matter more 
explicitly stated, and in the so-called Charter of Liberties of 1683 
and in the "Act declaring . . . the Rights and Privileges of 
. . . Subjects in New York," passed in 1691, the phraseology 
of Magna Carta and of the Petition and Bill of Rights is em- 
ployed to confine the taxing power in the hands of the legis- 
lature.^ These acts were disallowed, it is true, but in practice 
the principle thus explicitly stated was not violated except in 
the most indirect manner. The chief sources of income, as 
familiarly considered, were "The Revenue" and "Taxes." The 
distinction was based on practical grounds rather than abstractly 
scientific principles. The phrase, "The Revenue," came early to 
be applied with special meaning to public monies of a certain 
character, those that under settled conditions of provincial life 
were likely to be fairly constant in yield and thus well adapted to 
meet the permanent and standing part of the public expenses — 
the "ordinary support of government." In some ways, "The Rev- 
enue" may fairly be compared with the "Consolidated Fund," 
later established in the English financial system. The larger 
number of the items, and those the most productive, which came 
from this source, were dependent on votes of grant by the assem- 
bly. The component parts of the revenue were : duties on trade 
— generally referred to as the "customs," — the excise, quit- 
rents, fines and forfeitures, the weigh-house duties and certain 
relics of the regalian rights of the crown, such as the license to 
take royal fish. 



'Col. Doc. III. 819. Col. Laws I. 113, 246. 



lOO PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMKUT 

The customs, for the first twelve years after 1691 averaged 
about two-thirds of the revenue/ The system continued till 1709 
to be practically that established in 1683 by the Dongan assembly. 
It consisted of duties on imports of distilled liquors, wines, and 
merchandise and duties on exports of fur. The export duties 
were specific, and were accompanied by schedules of valuation ; 
and duties and valuations remained practically unchanged until 
1709. In connection with the duty on exported furs the act of 
1683 provided for what amounted to a license of ten per cent, on 
transaction in furs within the province. This appears in the 
revenue act of 1691, but after that was dropped. The duties 
on imported liquors were specific and remained fixed, except for 
a reduction of the duty on rum sent up the river for the Indian 
trade. There was more development in the system of duties on 
imported merchandise. The act of 1683 and the explanatory act 
of 1684 imposed a duty of two per cent, on merchandise, with a 
list of exemptions which included farm products of the neigh- 
boring colonies on the mainland and a number of semi-tropical 
products from the island colonies, as well as certain building 
materials. An additional duty of ten per cent, was laid on "In- 
dian goods," and specific duties on arms and ammunition and 
rum, when sent up the river. A schedule of valuations for each 
variety of Indian goods was provided. This system was con- 
tinued by the act of 1691. Rut in 1692 the duty of ten per cent, 
on Indian goods sent up the river, in addition to the two per 
cent, on general merchandise on importation, was changed to a 
system which laid a five per cent, duty on all Indian goods on 
importation, in addition to the two per cent, duty which the same 
goods had already paid as general merchandise. The ten per 
cent, tax on transactions in furs also disappeared at this time. 
The specific duties on arms and ammunition and rum sent up 
the river remained till 1700, when the four pence per gallon on 
rum, thus designed for the Indian trade, was dropped. - 

The productiveness of this item of the revenue would evi- 
dently be dependent not only on the character of the collector. 
but also upon the character of the mercantile population and the 
opportunities for smuggling afforded by the toj^ography of the 



'Doc. Hist. I. 701-2. Col. Mss. XLVII. 110. 
*Col. Laws I. 116, 170, 248. 287, 325, 419. 



IN KEW YORK, 169I-I719. lOI 

region. Bellomont considered that he had found a combination 
of unfavorable tendencies in all these directions at once — "the 
Acts of Trade being no otherwise put in execution than in the 
voice of the people." Even at the close of an administration full 
of an active, and, on the whole, successful, crusade against viola- 
tions of all acts of trade, imperial and colonial, Bellomont was 
obliged to report that probably one-third of the trade of the prov- 
ince was against law. Imperfection in the machinery of collec- 
tion was evidently a contributing feature, and even parliamentary 
interference for its improvement was suggested and threatened. 
There seems, further, to have been an actual decay in the volume 
of trade, beginning with the opening of the eighteenth century. 
Its causes were at the time, variously ascribed to losses by war, 
shifting in the habits of the commercial community occasioned 
by Bellomont's attack on the New York system of illegal and 
piratical trade, and the dissolution of the New York City monop- 
oly of bolting flour, an important export item. It may not un- 
reasonably be assumed that all of the features, the separate exist- 
ence of which is fully attested^ combined to account for the 
decay in the volume of trade, which seems to have been unques- 
tioned.^ 

The excise, levied on liquors sold at retail within the prov- 
itice, was throughout the period, granted in the same act with the 
customs. In proportionate amount of the whole revenue for the 
period for which figures are accessible, it averaged a little under 
one-fifth. The act of 1691 abolished the distinction between New 
York City and the rest of the province, previously existing in this 
matter, and provided for an excise on the sale of distilled liquors 
in quantity under fifteen gallons ; the same rate, viz., twelve pence 
per gallon, on the sale of wine in quantity under five gallons, 
and continued the former rate of six shillings per barrel on the 
sale of beer or cider. The act of 1692 abolished the distinction 
between distilled liquors and v/ines in the matter of the quantity 
constituting retail sale, making it five gallons for both. These 
were all the changes in the rates of excise during this period.^ 

The management of this item of the revenue, like that of 
the customs, seems to have been in the hands of the collector 



'Col. Doc. IV. 324-5, 417, 590-1, 515-6, 634. 603, 721, 778, 1012, 
1083-4, 1150, V. 57-9. 

' Col. Laws I. 116, 248, 287. 



102 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

and receiver general under the more or less active superintend- 
ence of the governor and council. It was usually farmed by 
counties, and the resulting opportunities for "graft" were appar- 
ently improved. Thus Bellomont reports the corrupt dealing of 
Fletcher's collector, Brooke, in the awarding of the contract for 
Long Island for £52 to his friend, the sheriff of New York, 
whose company was reported to be making £500. Accusations 
of the same nature, however, were made against Weaver, Bello- 
mont's own collector, and on the arrival of Cornbury all Weaver's 
arrangements on this matter were annulled. Bellomont thought 
that the excise on the province should amount to i 12,000, and 
was informed by those who had experience that it ought to yield 
at least £2,000; but he found difficulty in bringing it to i 1,200, 
though he estimated the population as four times and the num- 
ber of public houses as ten times as great as before the Leisler 
episode. Apparently the only alternatives to the award of the 
farming contracts to friends of the collector were, award by the 
council itself, selling the contracts at auction to the highest bidder, 
the process of "agreeing with" the public house keepers for at 
least the highest sum they had ever before paid, and a combina- 
tion of all these methods, varying the arrangement to suit the 
peculiarities of the counties. The last method seems to have been 
that which prevailed, for the most part, with what results on the 
productiveness of the excise as an item of revenue, figures are 
lacking to show.^ 

As these two items together constituted the largest part of 
the revenue and were always, till 1709, granted in one act, the 
circumstances connected with the passage of these acts are of 
some importance. The passage of the act of 1691 presents no 
features of special interest beyond the fact that the desire of the 
New York City merchants that the importation of European 
goods from neighboring colonies be restrained by a ten per cent, 
duty was denied, such restraint being resolved by the assembly 
to be "at this juncture a grievance to the inhabitants."- This 
assembly granted the revenue for a jicriod of two years from pub- 
lication, viz., 18 May, 1691. In the autumn preceding the expi- 
ration of this revenue, the newly arrived governor, Fletcher, en- 

'Exec. Council Minutes 8:39. 105-6, 183-4, 194, 9:49-50, 235. Col. 
Doc. IV. 418, 617. 

" Ass. Journal I. 16-7. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. IO3 

deavored to make the point of having the revenue granted for the 
life of the sovereign. The records of this assembly are incom- 
plete, and those which are accessible reveal the council demand- 
ing a grant for five years instead of two. In the conferences on 
the subject the assembly defended itself against the charge of 
disrespect or ingratitude to the crown by pleading the heavy 
burdens on the province, particularly in consideration of the free- 
dom from such burdens enjoyed by their neighbors. They further 
announced that they were considering a new method of support- 
ing the government, with the hope of making it more easy for the 
merchant ; but, till the wished-for annexation of the neighboring 
colonies, they thought it best not to discourage the merchants by 
grants of the present revenue for too long a period. How seri- 
ously this announcement is to be taken we have no information 
to show. xA-t all events, the governor and council did not push 
the matter any further and the grant was made again for two 
years. ^ 

At the next session in the spring of 1693, the revenue for 
life was again proposed in the governor's speech but the house 
took no action. The same subject was warmly urged on the newly 
elected assembly in the fall of 1693, and an animated debate took 
place in the conference. The council urged the example of Vir- 
ginia and Maryland and the previous grant in New York to 
James II., represented that giving it for life was no more than 
for a succession of periods and suggested that the corhpliment to 
the sovereign would enable the governor with greater boldness 
to ask for aid from home, and would lighten the burden of the 
militia detachments and taxes to support them. The assembly 
in reply repeated the announcement made by the previous assem- 
bly, of a design to support the government on a new basis, the 
present method being but a makeshift till conditions of war should 
be ended and their neighbours annexed. They protested that 
they did not intend to settle any less sum, but to settle it for life 
would be "presidentall," and "would be expected by the next 
Successour." And despite the council's enthusiastic laudation of 
the customs and excise as the "easiest" method of supporting the 
government, the assembly remained firm, and the governor and 
council, though with exceeding bad grace, were compelled to 



^Ass. J. I. 26-28. Council J. I. 30-32, 35. 



104 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

submit. It may be sis^nificant that it was at this session that the 
act for settHng- a ministry in certain parts of the province, an 
act on which the governor had set his heart, was passed.^ 

The next grant, in 1699, for a period of six years from 1700, 
was made by an assembly elected on this issue of granting a 
revenue, as it stood related to the whole question of the policy 
of Bellomont, the new governor. The opponents of his policy 
of enforcement of the imperial trade system had not scrupled to 
use their whole endeavor to arouse popular prejudice against him. 
On account of his vigorous attack on the "system" countenanced 
by Fletcher, he had not been able to avoid the appearance of 
patronizing the Leislerian faction. The scheme of his oppon- 
ents was to get an assembly elected which would refuse to con- 
tinue the revenue and thus involve the governor in such disgrace 
at home as would inevitably lead to his recall. On his part the 
governor did not scruple to use executive patronage to procure 
a "tractable" assembly, one which would continue the revenue 
for five years, "which is what I Chieftly stickle for." In this he 
was entirely "successful and the revenue was continued for six 
years, this time without effort on the governor's part to secure 
a grant for life. But the governor's "management" of the as- 
sembly for this purpose also involved his co-operation in acts 
of legislation which Itad a decided bearing an partisan interests. 
Here is a plain case of barter between governor and assembly, 
with continuation of revenue legislation on the one side and com- 
plaisance in partisan legislation on the other.^ 

The same is true to even greater degree of the next grant 
of revenue, which occurred under peculiar circumstances, four 
years before the expiration of the current revenue, i. e., in 1702.. 
Bellomont had experienced the greatest difficulty in restraining 
the vengeful passions of the Leislerians, who, as we have seen, 
were willing to buy legislative measures of redress with a longer 
grant of revenue than had been usual. Nanfan, the lieutenant 
governor, who succeeded on the death of Bellomont, was quite 
unable to restrain this fury ; and among the acts rushed through 
the assembly just before the arrival of Cornbury was one con- 
tinuing the revenue for two years after 1706, and at the same 
time requiring immediate payment of salaries to certain favorites 



' Ass. J. I. 32-3. Council J. I. 43-8. 

*Ass. J. 92-105. Col. Doc. IV. 327, 379, 507-8, 524, 821. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. IO5 

of the Leislerian party. This latter feature was an innovation 
in an act granting the revenue, and was probably, as Cornbury 
reported, the reason for passing the act. The whole legislative 
output of this session was subsequently annulled, but Cornbury, 
in the first session of the assembly elected after his arrival, ex- 
acted a real continuation of the revenue for three years after 
1706, in return for legislation repealing certain important statutes 
of Bellomont's time which had frustrated schemes of the Anti- 
Leislerian leaders.^ The point of importance to be noted in con- 
nection with all these grants of revenue is, that in the reckless 
excitement of factional conflict both parties for the sake of cor- 
rupt advantage put it beyond the power of an opposition to bring 
the pressure of a denial of supply for the ordinary support of 
government to bear upon the administration till after 1709. 

As the customs and the excise together constituted about 
eighty-five per cent, of the revenue, the remaining items were 
comparatively unimportant in point of productiveness. The only 
one that was dependent on the vote of the assembly was that de- 
rived from the "Weigh house Duties," which averaged about 
two and one half per cent, of the total revenue. This was granted 
by the assembly in 1692, having been collected prior to that time 
by virtue of the prerogative. The assembly attempted to make 
the grant for two years only, but were told by the council that, 
since it was only out of the condescension of the governor that 
they were allowed to ascertain the rates, nothing less than an 
unlimited grant could be considered. A subsequent request from 
the assembly, that the proceeds from the "King's Beam" be 
appropriated to the fortifications of New York City, "that the 
imposition may be the more willingly paid by the inhabitants," 
was ignored. - 

The income derived from seizures and forfeitures was from 
the nature of the case variable — "casual and accidental" was the 
term contemporaneously employed in description. During the 
first eleven years after 169 1 it averaged about two and one-half 
per cent, of the total revenue. During Cornbury's administra- 
tion the collector would not make any payments from this source 
of income without special orders from home. 



' Col. Laws I. 487, 517. Col. Doc. IV. 999, 1004. 

' Col. Laws L 322. Ass. J. I. 30. Council J. L 38-9. 



I06 PHASliS OF KOVAL GOXERNMliNT 

The quit rents constituted an item which, from its nature, 
might have been supposed to be an important feature of the rev- 
enue. The territorial revenue of the crown being beyond the 
direct influence of the assembly might have been the nucleus of an 
independent resource. That it was not thus available in any im- 
portant degree was due to the negligence of some, and the cor- 
rupt activity of other governors. In 17 lo the attorney general 
reported that by reason of the small reservations of quit-rents, 
the non-enrollment of patents or their loss if made, the presence 
of illegal features in many of the grants and the non-fulfillment 
of conditions, the income from "the greatest part of the conti- 
nent" would not average £100 a year. Whatever the fault of the 
early governors (and the proceedings of Fletcher in granting 
three-fourths of the province to less than a dozen peaple for 
quit rents amounting to less than £5 per annum shows that this 
was not inconsiderable), a wide-spread spirit of lawlessness con- 
cerning these matters in the rural regions is equally an element of 
the situation. Bellomont's opponents, in the election on the rev- 
enue issue already referred to, placed great reliance on their trick 
in getting him to essay the collection of the quit rents on a whole- 
sale plan during the progress of the" campaign. He himself sug- 
gested the necessity of an act of parliament for the regulation of 
land-granting in the province, being sure that no dependence 
could be placed on the assembly. He estimated that at a proper 
rate the income from this source should amount to £3000. Noth- 
ing in the line of improvement of the situation was achieved, 
however, during the currency of the revenue, though effort was 
made in this direction by the council in Cornbury's time, and 
though it was the government's only available resource in una- 
voidable exigencies.^ 

The subject of fees was one upon which there was strong 
popular feeling and much determined effort on the part of the 
assembly. The commission and instructions of the early part 
of the period seemed to commit the regulation of them to the 
governor and council, although in terms which did not entirely 
exclude the possibility of participation by the assembly. The 
subject had importance for the question of control of the finances 
by the popular body, because to the degree that the support of 



* Col. Doc. IV. 419, 519-20, 514, 555, V. 161-2. Council J. I. 212, 218-9. 



I>f NEW YORK^ 169I-I719. 107 

such officers was withdrawn from dependence on the legislature 
was control of them by that body rendered difficult. In their offi- 
cial expressions, however, it was always the burden on the ordin- 
ary conduct of affairs which was entailed by the extravagant 
charges, that was emphasized. In connection with the grants of 
revenue prior to Cornbury, tables or catalogues of fees were sent 
up to the council by the assembly. A regulation seems to have 
been provided by the council, after the receipt of a table from the 
assembly in 1693 ; but it seems never to have passed in regular 
form as an ordinance. Bellomont was of opinion that power in 
this matter was in the hands of the governor and council whose 
action must be especially approved by the home government ; and 
he so informed the assembly, who thereupon withdrew their 
table which they had intended to form part of the revenue act 
in 1699. It does not appear that any action from home was 
secured, and the regulation of 1693 continued in form. The 
general movement for reform of financial method by the as- 
sembly under Cornbury included repeated attacks on the fee 
system, which was represented as a form of taking away the 
property of the subject without consent in general assembly. 
These attempts culminated in 1709 in an act establishing fees, 
passed by both houses, and assented to by the lieutenant gov- 
ernor in the fear of stirring up trouble with the assembly at a 
time when so much was expected of it in the way of military 
supplies for the Canada expedition. In his correspondence with 
the home government Ingoldsby hinted that reform in some par- 
ticulars would be entirely in order ; but that the assembly had 
gone much too far in the other direction, reducing the fees so low 
that officers could not live. The act was disallowed and the con- 
tinuance of this contest formed a part of the general revenue 
controversy under Hunter.^ 

Levies of direct taxes comprised an item of public income 
which at any rate, for the first twenty years, after 1691, consid- 
erably exceeded the revenue in productiveness. The purposes for 
which these levies were made were, in theory, the "extraordinary 
uses" of the province, as distinguished from the "ordinary support 
of government." Naturally then, they were not necessarily mat- 

' Col. Laws I. 638. Ass. J. I. 12-13, 17, 28, 30, 223-4. Council J. I. 
32, 132-4. Col. Doc. IV. 287, V. 82, 603. 



I08 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

ters of annual or regular grant, but in fact, as the acts levying 
them were chiefly for purposes of defense, and as there were 
only four years of formal peace during this period, such acts 
came to be quite regular in their recurrence till the movement 
for the creation of the office of the country treasurer began in 
1703. During this period there were only two years in which 
an act for the levy of direct taxes was not passed by the legis- 
lature. By governors' administrations, the levies of direct taxes 
ran as follows : 

Sloughter and Ingolds- 

by £5000 Defense 

Fletcher £20,477 : 6 : 8 Defense 

£1,000 Agency 
£750 Present to governor 

Bellomont and Nanfan £ 1,000 Defense 

i2,ooo Present to governor and 

lieutenant-governor. 
ii,ooo Payment of debts 

Cornbury £8,483 : 10 Defense 

£2,000 Present to governor 
£143:10:10 Room for assembly 
£1,010 Payment of debts 

Practically all these levies were of the nature of a general 
property tax ; that is, a lump sum was granted, which was vari- 
ously called a "sum," "supply," "levy," "fund," quotas of which 
were by the terms of the act assigned among the several counties, 
to be "levied, assessed and raised upon the inhabitants, residents 
and freeholders." There was only one instance of the use of the 
"penny in the pound rate," viz. in 1692, for a present to Fletcher. 
There was one instance of the use of a poll-tax. in 1703, by 
which nine pence was imposed on freemen of sixteen years and 
over, three shillings on bachelors of twenty-five years, five shil- 
lings and six pence on persons wearing a periwig, twenty shil- 
lings on practising lawyers, twenty shillings on members of the 
assembly, and forty shillings on members of the coimcil. With 
these exceptions the levies were of the nature indicated. For 
assessment and collection of these taxes, the machinery used 
by the counties for their local rates was employed, and penalties 
were provided for failure by the justices of the peace of the 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-1719. IO9 

counties or the mayors or aldermen 01 the cities to enforce 
the powers of the act. Considerable difficulty was experienced 
in keeping the county officers to their duty, and for the first ten 
or fifteen years the records of the executive council contain 
many instances of pressure from that body on the justices. 
Most of the development in the system was concerned with 
strengthening here and there the penalties for the non-enforce- 
ment of the acts. At first, payment in produce was allowed, and 
schedules of rates at which it was to be received formed part 
of the acts. By 1695, this practice seems to have been dis- 
continued. A number of the early tax acts provide for taking up 
a proportional part of the sum to be raised at interest, on the 
credit of the act, with special appropriation clauses for the repay- 
ment of the persons who should thus advance ready money. 
Attempt was madfe early in the period to arrange for a system 
of commissioners in each county, to be appointed by the as- 
sembly and commissioned by the governor, for estimating es- 
tates ; and an establishment for such estimation "to prevent un- 
certainties in the Proportioning of all Subsidies ;" was included in 
the plan. But the device was rejected in council. Unfortunately 
the records of the assembly give no information concerning any 
debates over the assignment of quotas to the counties. The 
quotas bear a proportionate relation, not strictly maintained, to 
the population of the counties.^ 

It was matter of complaint by the Anti-Leislerians that what 
was praised as public spirit in their adversaries in reality cost 
them little, for their whole number paid scarcely one-fifth of the 
public assessments and scarcely one-fiftieth of the customs reve- 
nue. During Fletcher's administration, the taxes for defense, — 
and most of them were for that purpose, — omitted Albany from 
the quotas, in consideration of that county furnishing quarters. 



' Col. Laws I. 239, 258, 272, 282. 315, 344, 352, 354, 358, 364, 369, 381. 
Ass-y J. I. 36-8. 

In the period 1691-1711, the quota of the City and County of N. Y. 
averaged roughly from 20% to 30% of the total levy, beginning at the 
lower figure during the first two acts after Sloughter's arrival, and hold- 
ing at nearly 30% during Fletcher's and Bellomont's administrations and 
falling to 21% during the period from 1702 to 1711. The higher pro- 
portion corresponds pretty closely with New York's population if reck- 
oned by totals, the lower, if reckoned on the basis of the number of 
white males. 



no 1>IIAS1-:S OK ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

fire and candle for the detachments there stationed. This prac- 
tice was abandoned in the second intercolonial war. No convinc- 
ing explanation appears at present for several departures from 
the principle of population as a basis for reckoning quotas.^ 

In comparing the reliance placed upon the productiveness of 
the revenue and upon the levies, as sources of income, we are 
embarrassed by the absence of figures for receipts of revenue 
during the first twenty years of the eighteenth century. For the 
period, 1691-1695, the average revenue amounted to ^3,550, while 
the taxes voted for the corresponding period averaged £4,892 per 
annum. The figures for the administration of Bellomont and 
Nanfan seem to show a disposition on the part of the Leislerians, 
during their brief day of power, to take advantage of the greater 
accessiliility of their enemies' mercantile investments for public 
purposes. Both the periods 1698-1702 and 1 721-1728 were times 
of formal peace upon the frontiers ; yet in the former period direct 
taxes are in a ratio to the revenue of one to five, while in the 
latter the ratio is one to two. This feature appears particularlv 
in connection with their use of the additional duty, which, as a 
nearly constant feature of the finance of the early period, may 
propeviy be described here.- 

Partly as a result of loosenesss in the system of expenditure, 
partly as the result of the severe and long continued frontier 
struggles of the first intercolonial war, the province was con- 
tinually running in debt. Aside from all attempts to saddle 
upon the government, as constituted in 1691, the respon- 
sibilities incurred by the government of the Leisler interregnum, 
the actual expenses of the government continually exceeded 
its income. To meet these "anticipations of the revenue," — for 
so they were regarded — the practice was begun as early as 1692, 
of laying a duty upon the importation of certain goods, over and 
above the duties laid by all other acts. The act of November, 1692, 
imposed an additional specific duty on distilled liquors, wine and 
molasses, an additional duty of two per cent, on European goods, 
and of six per cent, in addition to this, upon such goods when im- 
ported from anywhere but England, Wales and Berwick. It was 



'Council J. I. 53. Col. Doc. IV. 621. Col. Mss. XLVII. 110. Doc. 
Hist. I. 687-702. 
'Ibid. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. Ill 

granted for two years and continued till 1698, by successive acts, 
mainly for the same purpose, viz., payment of public debts. In 
1699, a schedule of additional duties, in which the principle of 
discriminating between imports from England or place of manu- 
facture and elsewhere is still further carried out, was enacted for 
two years. It was during the period of this act that the assembly 
grudgingly co-operated with the governor in the project of erect- 
ing a fort in the Onondaga country. To provide ii,ooo for this 
purpose, for^vhich they had no real enthusiasm, they granted what 
might be called an additional additional duty. If, for the sake of 
keeping in touch with the governor, they must at least appear to 
assist him in this object, it should be in the manner least burden- 
some to their special following. B'ellomont called it a ''foolish 
money bill," and commented on the injurious effect it would have 
upon the regular revenue by putting an excessive clog upon trade. 
But for the sake of appearances before the Indians, he thought 
best to consent to it. It was, shortly afterwards, repealed, and 
a property tax was levied to meet the cost of the fort. The dis- 
position of the Leislerian leaders to bear with special weight on 
the trading interest as a source of public income is also displayed 
in an act that was passed on the expiration of the additional 
duty voted in 1699. The varieties of imports newly taxed by 
this schedule had a wide range, and some at a later period be- 
came a permanent element in provincial finance. But the speedy 
annullment of most of the legislation of this assembly deprives 
this of permanent significance.^ 

New York did not begin the practice of issuing bills of credit 
till 1709, when, owing to the urgent necessity of military 
supplies for the Canada Expedition of that year, such bills were 
authorized to issue, under elaborate directions as to currency, re- 
demption and retirement. They were regarded as anticipations 
of the proceeds of the taxes, provision for whose levy in at least 
equal amount was coincidently made. The issue was provided 
for by act, not by resolve, and, during the period now considered 
seems not to have been questioned at home.^ 



' Col. Laws 312, 325, 331, 342, 403, 444, 467. Col. Doc. IV. 713. Ass. 
J. I. 

' Col. Laws I. 666, 669, 689, 693, 695. 



112 PHASKS OF ROYAL GOVERNiMKNT 

In all these different methods of raising money for public 
purposes, the assemi)ly, as a matter of fact, look the initiative ; 
but the claim of an exclusive power of framing such legislation, 
leaving to the council only the right to accept or reject entire, 
does not appear until the general revolt against prerogative con- 
trol of expenditure was undertaken. Prior to 1703, when the 
assembly resolved, "that it is inconvenient to admit of amend- 
ments by the Council to a money bill," such amendments had re- 
peatedly been made by the council, both in the case of grants of 
the revenue and of tax levies. The council was not slow to resent 
this assumption, and was entirely supported in its claim to the 
right of making such amendments, by the Lords of Trade. Nev- 
ertheless, the struggle for the right to appoint its treasurer for 
funds raised for extraordinary uses, which was the struggle in 
which it found this claim a useful weapon, resulted in a victory 
for the assembly ; and the council, as a matter of fact, did not 
offend again till the occasion of the controversy over the grant- 
ing the revenue in Hunter's time. Undeterred by the previous 
rebuke of the Lords of Trade, the assembly persisted in its refusal 
to consider council amendments to money bills. And even in 
the settlement of the controversy, which involved the practical 
necessity of admitting council amendments to the bill for paying 
the debts of the colony, the assembly saved its face by formally 
resolving that this was not a money bill ! The same course of 
action, in practical consequence, was taken with regard to con- 
ferences concerning money bills. ^ 

As has been indicated, the chief struggle was that over control 
of expenditure. The commission required that "all public moneys 
. . . raised by an act . . . be issued out by Warrant from 
you by and with the advice and consent of the Council and Dis- 
posed of by you for the support of the government and not other- 
wise." The instructions required the governor not to "suffer any 
public money to be issued or disposed of other than by Warrant" 
from himself by and with advice and consent of the council, and 
also required that, in all acts or orders for levying money express 
mention should be made that the same was granted to the crown 
for the public uses of the province and the support of the govern- 
ment, "as by the said Act or Order shall be directed." The 



'Ass. J. I. 180. iO-i. 



IN NEW YORK, 1691-1719. II3 

governor was further required to take care that books of ac- 
counts of receipts and payments of pubHc money in which the 
particular sums raised and disposed of should be mentioned, be 
kept and transmitted to theTreasury at home and to the Board 
of Trade, "to the end we may be satisfied of the right and due 
application of the Revenue." The practical result is plain. It 
was evidently the intention that the money should be disposed 
of as directed in general terms ])y the money-granting power ; 
provision was made for satisfying the crown that this had been 
done ; but it is to be observed that in case of deviation from 
the ideal working of the machinery of expenditure, only 
remedial action, and that after the injury had been accom- 
plished, could be taken by the dissatisfied home government ; that, 
considering the means of communication and the imperfections of 
the system of imperial control generally, great harm might be 
wrought to the provincial finances before any remedy could be 
applied ; and finally, that there was no provision for the effective 
satisfaction of the body which had made the grant, that its pur- 
poses had been regarded. The experience of the first three ad- 
ministrations immediately demonstrated these possibilities, and 
they seem to be partially recognized in the new feature in Corn- 
bury 's instructions of 1702, in which it was stated that "the as- 
sembly may nevertheless be permitted from time to time to view 
and examine the accounts of money . . . disposed of by 
virtue of laws made by them."^ 

Control of expenditure of money granted for purposes out- 
side the range of the usual necessary and constant charges of gov- 
ernment was the first thing aimed at by the assembly. As we 
have seen, the raising of money for these purposes was accom- 
plished by levies of direct taxes ; and from the very first we find 
the acts stating the object of the grant in general terms, some- 
times in the title alone, sometimes more fully in the preamble. 
Usually both features were present, and were generally followed 
by some such phrase as this, "and for no other use whatsoever," 
or, "and not otherwise," or a provision that the money granted 
be "only appropriated or applied to," etc. The preamble was 
likely to contain, besides a recital of the facts setting forth the 
reasons for the grant, a more detailed statement of its object than 

'Ass. J. I. 188. Col. Doc. IV. 26(5. '284, 884-5. 
8 



114 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

was contained in the title. In the case of acts providing for pay- 
ing and maintaining detachments of militia, or for bounty money 
for enlistments to increase the force of the "Independent Com- 
panies," the practice came to be to state with much minuteness 
the number of men, the days they were to serve, the places where 
they were to be posted, etc., and a pay establishment was included 
in the act. By 1696, the differentiation of objects for which the 
money was granted and the allotment of definite sums to each pur- 
pose had gone so far, as practically to deprive the expending 
power of all discretion.^ 

For the assembly thus to manifest its intention was one thing; 
to enforce action in conformity with this intention upon a power 
beyond its direct control was quite another. In the absence of a 
positive requirement of accountability of the expending power to 
the tax-granting power, the latter could only work indirectly upon 
the situation, by exacting what satisfaction the former could be 
persuaded to grant, as a condition precedent to further supply. 
This, in time of public danger, would be an awkward thing to do, 
and in any cAse would be pretty certain to be associated with a 
complete breach with the governor and council. If the governor 
and council did not choose, or were unable, to compel the collector 
and receiver-general to give complete satisfaction to the assem- 
bly, it would depend upon the flagrancy of the proved departure 
from the assembly's wishes, or upon the degree of urgency of 
military supply, whether the assembly would go so far as actually 
to deny further supplies till satisfaction were obtained. One de- 
vice was made use of at an early stage of proceedings, viz., 
through the agency of a committee of accounts, frequently much 
hindered by the dilatoriness of the collector, to ascertain a bal- 
ance from funds previously raised, by means of objections to 
items in the collector's accounts, and to include this balance in a 
new bill for supply, thus diminishing, by the amount of the 
balance found, the sum to be raised by the new bill. During 
Fletcher's administration, obstructions of many kinds were placed 
in the path of this process, the assembly never being given satis- 
factory access to muster-rolls or accounts of expenditure of taxes 
for military purposes. In enforcing its program the assembly 



* Col. Laws I. 239, 258, 272. 282, 315, 344-52, 354, 358, 364, 369. 381. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. II5 

was pressed to its weapon of last resort — a denial of supply — 
and, on dissolution and the election of a new assembly, provision 
for defence was made on a different basis/ 

Apparently in recognition of the futility of attempts to control 
expenditure of taxes by any such indirect process as the foregoing, 
a further step in advance was taken, when, in 1700, the additional 
additional duty was granted for the erection of a fort in the On- 
ondaga country. Apparently with the encouragement of Bello- 
mont, managers named in the act, were appointed on whose ad- 
vice the governor was to issue warrants for the payment of bills 
connected with the fort, the collector and receiver-general being 
by the act required to transmit every three months to the man- 
agers, accounts of his receipts from the additonal duty.- Other 
acts passed by this assembly, while still under Leislerian influence 
but without the restraining hand of Bellomont, acts providing for 
even more rigid control of expenditure by representatives of the 
tax-granting power, are deprived of permanent significance by the 
fact that Weaver, the collector for the time, was a prominent 
leader of the Leislerian faction, for whose benefit these acts were 
passed. According to these acts, the collector was to pay the pro- 
ceeds of the tax thus raised to persons to be named by commis- 
sioners appointed for each county by the assembly. The acts 
were repealed by the Cornbury government with all speed, but 
the significance of the system provided for the enforcement of 
the assembly's intention is important and apparent. In previous 
acts for the payment of the debts, the assembly had ascertained 
the debts for itself, then had granted the additional duty for 
their payment, and finally had provided for the progressive 
division of the proceeds of the duty among the claimants, whose 
names and acknowledged accounts were stated in the act. The 
loose method of ascertainment which was provided in the act of 
1701 bears witness to the suspicious atmosphere clinging to the 
whole output of this assembly. The same taint of extreme and 
offensive partisanship vitiates the significance of the revenue act 
passed at this same session, which provided for immediate pay- 
ment of allotted salaries out of the proceeds of the duties imposed 



'Ass. J. I. 47-53. Council J. I. 67-77. 
= Col. Laws I. 367. Council J. I. 146. 



Il6 rilASES OF ROYAL GOVICRNM IJNT 

— a Step beyond the boldest dreams of the past, and only to be 
resorted to again after the province had been through the fiery 
trials of the Cornbury administration.* 

It was through the developing activity of the committees of 
accounts that the suggestion of the next important step was made. 
These committees were chiefly active in the attempt to ascertain 
the amount of the public debt, and in the rightful location of 
claims of accounts to be parts of this debt. Nearly every session 
of the assembly saw a committee of its own membership ap- 
pointed to inspect the accounts of the taxes and revenue, and to 
arrive at a statement of the debts of the government. Both 
Fletcher and Bellomont appear to have had but slight regard for 
the abilities of these committees to make use of accounts when they 
got hold of them. It was by joint committee of council and as- 
sembly that the information was obtained, which resulted in the 
passage of both acts for granting the additional duty for payment 
of debts in 1692 and 1696. By 1698, the assembly conmiittee 
found that the original lists of debts for which the additional 
duty had been granted had been paid ; but, according to Bello- 
mont, the indebtedness of the province was still great and its 
credit very low'.- The activity of the assembly committee on ac- 
counts, whose members were shortly made commissioners of 
accounts together with one outsider, the merchant Van Dam, and 
whose powers of investigation were at the same time made eflrec- 
tive, was apparently colored by the ambition to find their late 
antagonists sufficiently in debt to the government to make resti- 
tution by them answer for many claims and for the expenses of 
fortifications which the governor was pressing on the assembly. 
The commissioners found the accounts in a scandalous state of 
confusion, the claims of Livingston and Schuyler, against whom 
their wrath seemed to be especially kindled, filled with objection- 
able items which were not according to the acts or according 
to any principle of good management. But the excessive rigor 
and severity pursued in relation to these accounts, and the reck- 
lessness with which claims of their fellow partisans at the time 
of the Leisler episode were allowed and the leaders in their recent 



• Col. Law.s I. 467-79, 479-88. 

'Col. Doc. IV. 522, 721. Ass. J. I. 09, 90. Council J. I. 27, 76, 



IN NEW YORK. 169I-1719. II7 

time of prosperity were rewarded, enveloped the whole subject of 
provincial debt-paying in an atmosphere of corruption which 
clung to it throughout the whole period.^ The commissioners 
of accounts appointed by the assembly called by Cornbury were, 
with the exception of Van Dam, now a member of council, 
, Anti-Leislerians ; and they were directed to inquire only into 
the accounts from the time of Bellomont's arrival. This is 
significant of the spirit of their principals ; but their inquiry 
within these limits seems to have been conducted with greater 
efificiency than has been observable before. Their findings in- 
cluded discovery of negligence equal to that of Brooke, on the 
part of Weaver, Bellomont's collector, while many objections to 
items of discharge in which partisan animus is evident, appear. 
Their objections, however, display a continuity in principle with 
objections made by the Leislerian commissioners in the matter of 
the use of the ordinary revenue for the support of the 'Tnde- 
pendent Companies." The commissioners also severely criti- 
cised the deputy of the Auditor-General of the Plantations for 
passing accounts so full of errors. Particularly important is 
their final observation : "This Board are of Opinion, That it 
will be very difficult to come to the satisfactory knowledge of 
the Uses and distributions of the Revenue and public Sub- 
sidies and of the Debts of the Gov't (forasmuch as the Charges 
do take their arise from the Council Board) not knowing that 
there is any Accountant Established or Books kept wherein 
the Accounts are fairly entered by way of Journal, as they 
are past in Council ; and the Collectors or Commissioners of 
the Customs take up no more warrants than what they pay, 
which for the most part bear only some General Hint of the Use. 
Neither can we know where the Arrears of Taxes are standing 
out, nor have any distinct account of the distribution of them, 
some of the Collectors having Charged themselves in Gross with 
all the monies they receive and the Deputy Auditor having allowed 
the Discharge promiscuously : We are therefore of opinion it 
would be very necessary the Country would appoint a Receiver 
for all Subsidies and Taxes Except the Revenue, who should be 



'Col. Laws I. 441, 459, 469, 479. Col. Doc. IV. Ass. J. I. 112-14, 
119-38. Exec. Council Min. VIII. 204-10, 225, 276, 339, 340. Col. Mss. 
XLIV. 81, 156, 276, XLV. 85. 



Il8 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

accountable to the Assembly for the Same and the disposition 
thereof, to the uses for which they are Granted."^ 

This report was presented at the spring session of 1703, and 
the suggestion was immediately acted upon. In a bill for raising 
£1,500 towards the construction of batteries to guard the Narrows, 
provision was made for a treasurer for receiving and paying the 
money which was now intended to be raised. Being informed in 
the series of conferences which ensued upon the council's attempt 
to amend the bill, that such proceeding was contrary to the in- 
structions, the assembly presented an address to the governor, 
desiring him to represent to the queen its purpose, viz., the pre- 
vention of misa]:)plications in the future, and to desire an instruc- 
tion to himself to commissionate some fit person to be treasurer, 
the same to give sufficient security by freeholders and inhabitants, 
for the due execution of his office.* In the meantime, the assem- 
bly incorporated in the £1,500 bill a clause reciting the abuse and 
misapplication of the public money as a matter of notoriety, and 
requiring the collector to keep a separate account of the money 
received by virtue of this act and exhibit the same to the assem- 
bly when required.^ 

This was the beginning of a struggle in which, for the first 
time, the assembly used its whole power for the attainment 
of a truly political end uncomplicated, or comparatively so, by 
any partisan aspects. In the course of this struggle, an ac- 
count of which in detail is forbidden by space limitations, the 
assembly attempted to force the council into a subordinate po- 
sition in the matter of legislation involving money-raising, by 
denying the council's right to amend such bills, and did not 
hesitate to enforce its demand, by refusing a supply even at 
the risk of danger to the province in time of war. On retreating 
from its original demand for a treasurer who should be account- 
able to itself, it revived the practice of former times, by inserting 
minute directions as to appropriations and ascertainments of 
of balances from former supplies, which had not been expended 
in accordance with the directions of the acts. In opposition to 
Combury's interpretation of the instruction which permitted 

'Col. Mss. XLVII. 110. 
' Ass. J. I. 170. 
•Col. Laws I. 550. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 119 

them to view the accounts as not extending to their "meddHng 
with them," they held that the whole intent of that instruction 
was that the assembly might be satisfied that the money 
raised by them was applied to the uses appointed. In reply 
to the council's objection to their device of making a certifi- 
cate from the commanding officer a discharge to the treasurer, 
that it was in violation of the instruction forbidding the issue of 
public money in any other way than by warrant from the gov- 
ernor and. council, they held that their desire in this connection 
was no more than the requirement of the approval of the coun- 
cil to the governor's warrants for the ordinary support of 
government. This they described as equally a kind of voucher for 
the due disposition of that money according to the necessities of 
the colony. Throughout the controversy, they based their policy 
on the report of the commissioners of accounts, already referred 
to, which recited the impossibility of a certain knowledge of the 
state of the revenue under the existing system, and on the fact of 
misapplications in the past and at the time, which were being 
progressively brought to light through the agency of the com- 
missioners. Dissolution only brought upon the scene an as- 
sembly more determined upon the original project. The gover- 
nor represented the matter to the Lords of Trade as another evi- 
dence of the spirit of independency everywhere rife — "as the 
country increases they grow more sawcy." Nevertheless, in 
1706, the Lords of Trade directed the governor to permit the 
assembly "to name their own Treasurer when they raise extra- 
ordinary Supplies for particular L^ses," to be accountable to 
governor, council and assembly. Warrants might be issued 
by the colonels, captains or other persons according to the 
direction of the act, but the governor must always be informed 
of the occasion of issuing such warrants, and all persons con- 
cerned in issuing and disposing of such money must be made 
accountable to the governor, council and assembly. The course 
of the assembly in pretending to the privileges of the House 
of Commons was definitely rebuked. The money must be 
granted expressly to the crown "which need not hinder the 
Assembly of New York from appropriating the money so granted 
to such particular uses as are found requisite." This last point 
was a valuable feature of the message for the assembly's pur- 
pose, practically confirming its previous use of the power of 



120 I'llASliS OK ROYAL GOVKRNMENT 

appropriation and forming a basis for the extension of the usage 
at a later period.^ 

One dangerous feature of the situation had thus been rem- 
edied for the future, and thereafter all acts levying taxes contained 
clauses providing for the custody of the funds thus raised by the 
treasurer appointed by the act. The payment of such money was 
to be performed by the treasurer, either upon warrants addressed 
to him by commissioners or managers named in the act, which 
also carefully limited the purposes for which the warrants were 
to be drawn ; or directly to persons named in the act, whose 
receipts were pronounced a sufficient discharge to the treasurer. 
One part at least of the public income was now under the effective 
control of the power that had raised and granted it. Expenditure 
of money raised for the ordinary support of government was still 
beyond control, and the methods and consequences of preroga- 
tive control of this portion of the public income must now be 
examined. 

There was one circumstance peculiar to the expenditure of 
this portion of provincial income, viz., the fact that certain items 
were assigned or allotted by forces entirely outside the province. 
The governor's salary, for example, was fixed by a clause in 
the instructions empowering him to take to himself such and 
such a sum as his salary. The collector and receiver-general 
was assigned his salary by the Lords of the Treasury out of the 
quit-rents. Such manifestations of control over resources it 
was entirely out of the power of the province to prevent during 
the continuance of a revenue already granted. Only when the 
assembly had gotten a leverage by reason of the expiration of 
the revenue of 1709. do we hear anything of an opinion that her 
Majesty might not allot salaries out of the revenue. The power 
given to the governor by the commission and instructions to reg- 
ulate all salaries and fees might be influenced in its effectual 
working in the long run by the size of the funds established by 
the money-granting power at intervals for the support of gov- 
ernment, and by the unwillingness of the assembly to regard an- 
ticipations of the revenue, in so far as they were caused by such 
salary-regulation by the governor, as truly public debts. Rut only 



'J. I. 157-215 csp. 203. 205-7. Council J. I. 189-245. Col. Doc 
IV. 1121-2, 1145-47, 115«. ll()5-nf), 1171-2. 1181-5. 



IN XEVV YORK, 169I-I719. 121 

thus indirectly could the assembly do its work. Ordinary support 
of government would naturally include, in addition to salaries 
of officers, incidental expenses of government, and the meeting of 
unexpected emergencies. The latter in time of war would be 
likely to be heavy, as would the former during the periods in which 
the government was especially active in enforcing its program 
upon an unwilling people. Both of these conditions were present 
during the administrations of the first four governors till 1709, 
but particularly so during the period from 1691 to 1702. 

The salary list varied considerably during the period, but ex- 
hibited a general tendency to increase. In 1693 it amounted to 
£1,738, in 1702 to £2,855, in ^7^4 to £3,097, in 1708 to £3,542. 
The governor and council had from the first established the rule 
that warrants sliould be paid in course following the dates of issue, 
with the exception that salary warrants should be paid quarterly.^ 
"Contingent charges of government," which it is impossible to 
estimate or report in even approximate figures, including such 
items as expresses on Indian diplomatic service, the cost of 
maintaining good relations with the Indians in general, expenses 
of legislative sessions, and the like, constituted an important 
item in the support of the government. The presence of troops 
in the king's pay also involved a burden on the revenue, for, 
owing to the high prices prevailing in America, their pay, 
even when transmitted at sterling value, was not sufficient to 
defray their "incidents" in addition to their subsistence. These 
"incidents," together with support of stafif officers, and main- 
tenance of barracks and fortifications were supposed to be pro- 
vided for by the stoppage of ten per cent, from the pay ; but 
for the reasons indicated, the provision was utterly inadequate 
even for one of the objects. It is to be observed that these 
items are of comparatively regular recurrence, even though 
difficult to calculate in amount. Add to these items those con- 
nected with sudden and unavoidable emergencies, to be expected 
in time of war; and the necessity for an intelligent system, and 
scrupulous adherence to at least the outline of such system be- 
comes apparent. The commission and instructions placed in the 
hands of the governor and council exclusively, the issuing of war- 



'Doc. Hist. I. 313. Ass. J. I. 243. Col, Mss. XLIX. 142. E.xec. 
Council Min. VI. 139. 



122 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

rants upon the collector and receiver-general for payment of all 
monies raised for the ordinary support of government. The actual 
conduct of the matter is perhaps best portrayed by George Clarke, 
secretary of the province, deputy to, and kinsman of, Blaith- 
waite, the auditor-general, in a letter written in 1706, after three 
years of residence in the province had familiarized him with the 
conditions. "The Governor being judge of whatever is necessary 
to be done for Her Majesty's service in the province whenever 
he thinks it convenient directs the performance thereof accord- 
ingly. The service completed, the persons employed or furnishing 
materials bring in accounts to the Governor and Council. Where- 
upon a committee of three at least is appointed to examine the 
accounts and they report according to the nature and circum- 
stance of the affair, 'though Generally and indeed almost always 
the Substance of their Report is that they have Examined the 
account and believe it to be true and are of opinion that his Ex- 
cellency may safely Issue Warrants for payment of the same out 
of the Revenue.' The preparatory steps being taken the Gov- 
ernor in Council Issues his Warrant (under) his hand and Scale 
to the Receiver-Generall ... In obedience to these warrants 
the Receiver-General pays the sums for which they are drawn 
so farr as the Revenue will Extend (after the Sallarys of the 
Governor and other officers are paid these being by order of the 
Governor and Council made preferrable to all payments) yett 
sometimes and indeed frequently Sallary warrants are not paid 
when others are, and at other times The Receiver-General makes 
distinctions of persons when their warrants make none. 
Hereupon arise this Generall observation That there seems to be 
Little or no hopes of having the Revenue applied to the necessary 
uses only for which it was Intended For the to per cent, falling 
Short (as I am informed) of what is Sufficient to pay the Staff 
officers, consequently the Incidents of fire Candles. Nursing Sick 
Soldiers etc. being unavoidable and what the Garrisons cannot 
Subsist without these Expenses must be paid out of another fund 
and there being no other but the Revenue and the Governor hav- 
ing the disposall thereof in the manner aforesaid he orders the 
payments thereout of those and all other expences by Warrants as 
aforesaid to the Receiver General."^ 



' Col. Mss. LI. 170. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. I23 

The partiality in the recognition of claims upon the govern- 
ment, thus indicated, is one of the many features of the system of 
exclusive control of expenditure for support of government by 
governor and council which, in the first eleven years of the period, 
had excited a deep-rooted distrust on the part of the people, and 
which went under the general label of "mismanagement" or "mis- 
applications." This "mismanagement" is exceedingly difficult 
to analyze and to account for in any systematic way. Only a few 
features, samples as it were, can be given. Perhaps its most seri- 
ous feature was the heavy accumulation of indebtedness actually 
incurred under the operation of the system, which, with the par- 
tiality in the treatment of creditors above indicated, would be 
enough to ruin the government's credit. That the latter result 
was accomplished, there is abundant evidence to show. Estimates 
of the amount of indebtedness at different times are necessarily 
vague, and the reasons assigned for its existence conflicting. 
Colonel Quary reported, in 1703, that at the end of Fletcher's 
administration, the debt of the provice was no more than could 
be discharged by the arrears of revenue and taxes. Bellomont 
reported, in 1699, that the debt amounted to £5,000; while, in 
1702, at the beginning of Cornbury's administration it was re- 
ported at i 10,000, and ascribed to mismanagement in Bellomont's 
time. Livingston reported, in 1707, that ten years' revenue, if 
settled, would not clear the debts. The two acts in Hunter's 
time for payment of debts recognized an indebtedness amount- 
ing to over £42,000, but a respectable fraction of this was 
for debts incurred subsequent to the expiration of the revenue in 
1709. In any case the seriousness of the burden is manifest.^ 

The objections of the deputy auditor general to the collec- 
tor's accounts in Cornbury's administration shows that another 
feature of mismanagement was profuse extravagance in provid- 
ing for certain objects, which were entirely legitimate in them- 
selves. One of the most notorious of these instances of extrava- 
gance was Cornbury's first journey to Albany to meet the Indians. 
The trip cost more than twice as much as any previous one. and 
the excess can not be charged to unusual liberality in regard 
to the presents to the Indians. Another illustration is to be 
found in the extravagant expenditure for candles, and for many 

'Col. Doc. IV. 513, 829. Cal. Treas-y Papers Vol. 1702-7, 511-12. 



1_'4 I'HASliS OF ROYAL COX i:KN M ENT 

Other items which should have gone to the governor's house- 
hold account. From the same source we learn of the greatest 
carelessness in using the revenue for purposes for which the 
pay of the "Independent Companies" was established. Laxness 
in control of subordinate officers by the governor was another 
feature of mismanagemnt. The charging to the revenue of a 
double salary, one to the commissioner for executing the office 
of collector during the time of Byerley's suspension, and one to 
Byerley himself for the same period, a result which was made 
necessary by the disapproval at home of Byerley's suspension, still 
further swelled the biu'den of debt. Another feature which con- 
tributed to mismanagement was the uncertainty in regard to the 
state of the revenue at any given time. The frequent changes in 
l)ersonnel in the office of collector, with the disputes and obstruc- 
tions concerning the settlement of accounts on each transfer, and 
animosity existing between Cornbury and Byerley and extend- 
ing through nearly the whole of the former's administration 
made it practically impossible that the authentic information 
should be attained, had there been any determined official dispo- 
sition to make such information accessible.' The same uncer- 
tainty, it will be observed, had already been noted by the com- 
missioner of accounts in the matter of the state of the taxes. 

The letters of the executive council during the latter part of 
Cornbury's administration are full of quarrelsome charges and 
recriminations on the part of all officers who had to do with ex- 
penditure as well as complaints of the various claimants on the 
public purse. Out of all the tangled swirl a few chief currents 
or eddies seem to be distinguishable — the dissipation of public 
funds by profuse expenditure for the governor's personal ends ; 
the activity of Fauconnier, who was naval officer and com- 
missioner for executing the office of collector whenever Byerley 
was under suspension, as chief manager of Cornbury's schemes ; 
the opposition of Byerley to these schemes, many of which were 
for the purpose of assisting those to whom Cornbury was under 
corrupt obligation : the helplessness or indiflFerence of the coun- 
cil in making its function of advice to the governor in the matter 
of warrant-issue effective in checking such practices ; the con- 



' Col. Mss. LII. 24, 26, 81. Exec. Council Min. X. 120. Cdl. Treas-y 
Papers vol. 1702-7:535. Col. Doc. V. 405, 408. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. I25 

sequently difficult position of Clarke, the deputy auditor general, 
who objected to the proceedings of both parties ; and the atti- 
tude of the assembly, which was becoming more and more dis- 
gusted with the working of the system as developed by Corn- 
bury.^ 

The excessively bad reputation of the Cornbury administra- 
tion, as that of a plundering pro-consul, seems partly to be ac- 
counted for by the man's low personal character, partly by the 
impudently open use of certain public monies for ends of 
purely personal gratification, and partly by the unusual opportuni- 
ties presented to a governor of such a character. For the first 
time in the history of the province we have the combination of a 
governor using his power with a faction largely for personal ends, 
and a collector at odds with the governor in the latter's devices for 
exploiting provincial resources and for saving his subordinates 
and accomplices, and using the due execution of his office as his 
protection against compliance with the governor's irregular 
courses. Under these circumstances, whatever injury was inflicted 
on the provincial finances would be peculiarly exasperating; and 
the fact that after at least eighteen months' confinement in New 
York, Cornbury was only able to get away from his creditors by 
the good nature of Hunter, would seem to indicate that, however 
great his "pickings," they had not permanently bettered his for- 
tune very much. Complaints of the bad possibilities of the system 
of prerogative expenditure and of the partial exploitation of these 
possibilities had been made with reference to Bellomont's admin- 
istration, but without slur on Bellomont's personal reputation. It 
was Cornbury's peculiarly sordid use of the opportunity that 
earned for his administration the especial degree of obloquy which 
is associated with it. The fact that Byerley, though not himself 
entirely free from irregularities, was able to work harmoniously 
with Hunter inclines one to the view that in his controversies 
with Cornbury, it was Byerley's that was, comparatively speak- 
ing, official righteousness. Specific instances of Cornbury's em- 
bezzlements of public money given for public uses are, in the pres- 
ent state of the records, well-nigh impossible to prove. Colden 
refers to his applying the proceeds of the i 1,500 tax designed for 

' Col. Mss. LII. 87. Cal. Treas-y Papers vol. 1702-7 :557. Ass. J. L 
224, 236-8. 



126 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

the fortification of the Narrows, to the erection of a pleasure- 
house on Nutten's, now Governor's, Island, as though it were mat- 
ter of common knowledge. Cornbury himself referred to these 
rumors in his speech to the assembly in its session of 1706, and, 
declaring that the tax had not been collected, asked for an inves- 
tigation. He complained at the end of the session of their lack 
of thoroughness in this investigation, the results of which seemed 
to be the finding that only £356:6:5^ had been collected. In 
connection with the ii,8oo voted for defense in the same year 
with the £1,500, the assembly found that £793:6: of the £1,800 
were in the hands of the commissioners for executing the office 
of collector, not applied to the uses intended by the act.^ 

The inadequacy for such a situation, of the check upon gov- 
ernmental expenditure supposed to be exerted by the presence of 
a deputy of the auditor-general and the transmission of the col- 
lector's accounts to the Lords of the Treasury, is plainly pointed 
out by Clarke in the letter from which quotation has already been 
made. The respective duties of the governor and council and 
of the deputy auditor in relation to the collector's accounts seem 
to have been practically undetermined at this time. The collec- 
tor's accounts were supposed to be examined and approved by the 
council after having been sworn to by the collector. Byerley, 
however, held that if the deputy auditor allowed his accounts, 
that was sufficient, and examination by the governor and council 
was not necessary. This was, however, only when it was the gov- 
ernor and council that he was disputing with. Clarke thus repre- 
sents the practical difficulties of the situation to his principal, the 
auditor-general. "And allowing that the Receiver-General (as 
he alledges it to be) is by his Instructions Sufficiently discharged 
by Warrants past by the Governor in the manner above said he 
may notwithstanding your observations or objections pay what 
warrants he pleases because they are his discharge ; and indeed he 
does accordingly for he pays warants of the like nature with those 
vou have objected to and gives what I have just said for his 
Reason though nobody will persuade me he does it without a Con- 
sideration. ... To prevent future misapplications 'twould 
be very proper I should think to send hither orders in Relation to 
the applying and Issuing the Revenue, or Else the money must be 



' N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls. 1868. 204. Ass. J. I. 208-212, 227. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. I27 

appropriated from home (vizt.) so much for firewood and so on 
with all the particular Expenses : But if the latter be not thought 
proper 'twill be very necessary that a way be found to Submitt 
all accounts (before the Governor's Warrant Issues for payment 
of the Sume) to the Auditor Generall or his Deputy and that no 
more nor other Expences should be allowed than what he thinks 
reasonable and herein the Deputy Auditor should be fully and par- 
ticularly instructed, that he may not be in the Dark nor do what 
may not be approved of at home afterwards. For as it is now 
he can only allow or disallow of Warrants after they are paid 
and that the Receiver Generall does not in the least regard but 
says the very warrants he pays are Sufficient discharges to him 
for so much. Though this (is) proposed as the properest method 
I can think of at present yett I hope a better way may be found : 
for by this there is vast trouble like to attend the Deputy Auditor 
in the Examination and allowance of all accounts which before 
was done by a Committee of Council (who 'tis true favor their 
friends and are themselves often concerned) and besides this 
Great trouble the Deputy Auditor will be continually Subjected 
to the frowns and resentment of the Governor to whom there will 
be constant applications^and thereupon Commands or orders which 
may bring the Deputy-Auditor under this Dilemma either that 
he must disobey the Governor or betray the Trust reposed in 
him."^ Comment on the foregoing as a revelation of conditions 
prevailing in Cornbury's time is hardly necessary. The difficul- 
ties, thus described, disappeared with a change of personnel in 
the governor's office. 

The net result of this whole period would appear to be about 
as follows : during the first eleven years, the assembly was find- 
ing itself, as it were, and acquiring experience. The conditions 
of the financial problem were in the mean tim^ accumulating, 
and that, at a time when public attention was occupied with a 
partisan conflict under Sloughter, Fletcher and Bellomont, and 
with the results which might follow the enforcement of the im- 
perial trade system under Bellomont. From the beginning of 
Cornbury's administration, after experience had been gained 
under the domination of each of the local factions in turn, a move- 
ment begins to be visible amid the dust of partisan strife, working 



' Col. Mss. LI. 170. 



128 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

in the direction of practical control over the expenditure of at 
least one element of provincial income. After success had been 
attained in this direction, however, by the winning of the right 
to appoint a Country Treasurer, the expenditure of money raised 
for support of government was still beyond the control of any 
element which effectively represented popular interest. Effective 
action on this point could only become possible when the expira- 
tion of the revenue act in 1709 should once more give the assem- 
bly leverage. The exhibition, to greater and more exasperating 
degree, of the working of the prerogative system of expendi- 
ture, together with the decreasing volume of trade already noted, 
was establishing more firmly every day the well grounded objec- 
tion to the whole system by which the government was supported. 
This opposition found adequate, but under the circumstances 
alarming, expression, in the resolve of the assembly of the elev- 
enth of Septeml)cr, I70(S — "That the raising of any Monies, 
for the Support of Government or other necessary Charge, 
by any Tax, Impost or Burthen on Goods imported or ex- 
ported, or any clog or Hindrance on Trafifick or Commerce, 
is found by sad Experience, to be the Expulsion of many and 
the Impoverishing of the rest of the Planters, Freeholders and 
Inhabitants of this Colony, of most pernicious consequence, 
which if continued will unavoidably prove the Destruction of 
the Colony." 



CHAPTER V. THE REVENUE CONTROVERSY, 

1709-1717. 

The dispute over the method of supporting the government 
constituted the main action of the period, 1709-17 17. The con- 
troversy itself is only to be understood in the long perspective 
of the period described in the preceding chapter, as well as in the 
light of the period between the administrations of Cornbury and 
Hunter. 

The resolve quoted at the close of the last chapter indicates 
the general character of the assembly's sentiments concerning 
the working of the revenue system in the past. The general con- 
dition of the province and the plans of the opponents of a con- 
tinuation of the former system are set forth in the communica- 
tions of prominent residents and officials. Livingston and Morris 
agreed in reviling the Cornbury administration, the latter liken- 
ing it to that of Gessius Florus in Judaea. Livingston described 
the province as appearing to be "under a visible judgment . . . 
since this gent, came among us . . . trade decayed, house rent 
fell . . . everything behindhand," — "a poor dispirited people, a 
mixture of English French and Dutch ... if never so much 
oppressed dared not complain because they were not unanimous 
and did not stick to one another. So that if a governor were 
not a man of honor and probity he could oppress the people when 
he pleased. He had but to strike in with one party and they 
assisted him to destroy the other." The province was evidently 
not prosperous and many of its inhabitants v/ere in bad temper. 
As to the intentions of the assembly in regard to the revenue, 
Colonel Quary describes the intention never to renew it as "the 
discourse in every man's mouth, but some of the most consider- 
ing men say that perhaps they will give money for the support 
of government but it shall be only from year to year and disposed 
of as they think fit, so that the governor and all the officers shall 
depend on them for bread. "^ 

The conduct of the assembly itself, as soon as, under ordinary 
circumstances, action for a continuance of the revenue would 



' Col. Doc. V. 19, 87. Cal. Treas-y Papers, Vol. 1708-14, pp. 611-13, 
9 (129) 



130 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

have been in order, certainly bears out much of this descrip- 
tion. Since the assembly had received permission to name their 
own treasurer, they had raised no funds except for extraordinary 
uses, and these acts had contained extremely detailed appropria- 
tions.^ When action in the direction of continuing the excise, 
which seems to have been taken as a matter of course, became 
necessary, the disposition of the assembly toward innovation upon 
former methods became evident. The same rates were continued 
but they were granted only for one year. Practically the same 
system of management was employed, but now the system was 
established by law, and the mayors and aldermen and the justices 
of the peace were made the assembly's agents in the matter ; and 
the country treasurer was designated as the receiver of the pro- 
ceeds, instead of the collector and receiver-general. In the same 
act, notice was taken of the fact that, though the weighhouse 
duties had been granted to King William and Queen Mary, never- 
theless, since the demise of the crown these duties had been col- 
lected without grant. It was now formally provided that the 
duties should be paid to the treasurer instead of to the collector 
and receiver general, and the latter official was furthermore re- 
quired to account with the treasurer for what he had received 
on that account. It was provided also that the treasurer should 
pay out the money raised by this act, "in Such Manner and to 
Such uses only as by Act of General Assembly hereafter to be 
made for that purpose, shall be Limitted appointed and Expressed 
and not otherwise."^ 

The necessity of supporting the government in the manner 
usual in the past, as well as the restoration of the government's 
credit by the ascertainment and settlement of the numerous pub- 
lic debts, had been urged on this assembly by Lovelace, the new 
governor. The assembly replied with chill politeness that it was 
their desire that people should be attracted hither and then kept 
here, and that the contrast between the "wrong Methods too long 
taken and the Severities practiced here" and the conditions in the 
neighboring colonies had kept people away. They then called 
for the accounts of the revenue, the salary list and the claims upon 
the government ; and on the day of Lovelace's death, 5 May. 1709, 
had resolved to raise £2,500, of which £1,600 was to be paid to 



' Col. Laws I. 593, 598, 628, 662. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. I3I 

the governor and the rest for "incidents" of the garrisons and 
small salaries for a few of the officers.^ Almost immediately 
after Lovelace's death came the news of the intended expedition 
against Canada, and in the rush of preparation for this enter- 
prise, the assembly got no further in support of government 
than the passage of the excise act already referred to ; and this 
as was observed, made no provision for payment of any of the 
expenses of government. Resolves, however, were passed, look- 
ing to the provision of a tonnage duty, a duty on importation. of'' 
slaves, a chimney tax and a poll tax on slaves in the colony, and 
to payments to Lady Lovelace, the lieutenant governor and the 
chief I'ustice. At the autumn session in 1709, these resolves 
found expression in legislation, the payment of the "allowances" 
referred to, except that for Lady Lovelace, being provided for in 
a separate "Act for the Treasurer's paying certain sums of 
money." Items relating to the maintenance of the "Independent 
Companies," such as had previously formed part of the ordinary 
expenses of government, together with a few small salaries, prin- 
cipally those of legislative officers, were also provided for in 
another separate appropriation bill. At the spring session they 
had taken the opportunity to embody their long-cherished ideas 
concerning fees in a bill, which, for reasons of the moment, was 
allowed to be passed into an act.- Thus they were showing them- 
selves true to the intentions ascribed to them at the close of the 
Cornbury administration, though as yet on a small scale and 
under peculiar circumstances. The Canada expedition, now on 
foot, though it was made as attractive as possible by the imperial 
authorities, and though it met with enthusiastically responsive sen- 
timents in the province, required very considerable exertions in 
the way of financial and military support. Even in reference to 
matters that were not deemed important for the expedition by 
the council, that body showed itself anxious to avoid exasperat- 
ing the assembly; and objections which under other circum- 
stances would undoubtedly have been insisted on. were yielded, 
among them, these innovations in the matter of the ordinary sup- 
port of government.'* 



'Ass. Journal I. 240, 242, 246. 

= Ass. J. I. 253-6. Col. Laws I. 675, 682, 684, 698, 638. 
' Ass. J. I. 2.52-3, 267. Col. Laws L 654, 669, 693, 698, 675, 682, 684. 
Col. Doc. V. 82-3. Smith, 194-5. 



132 PHASES UF UOYAL GOVERNMENT 

The acts which provided money l)y (Hrect taxation for the ex- 
penses of tlie expedition inchuled precautions exi)ressed with even 
greater detail than in previous acts, for the nianagenieiU of the 
expe(htion hy the commissioners appointed hy the assembly. Al- 
together some £14,000 was raised; and for accounting for it and 
for management of its expenditure, the assembly laid down strict 
rules which appear to have been followed, to its own satisfac- 
tion, at least. Jt was probably due to a combination of circum- 
stances, that the assembly in New York was enabled at this criti- 
cal moment to make such a hopeful beginning in the realization 
of its designs. Tliese circumstances were the fear of stirring 
up the opposition of the body from which much was expected 
in the v^'ay of financial assistance ; the wielding, even though 
for a brief time, of the powers of the governor's commission 
by a locum-tenens under the influence of Cornbury ; and the 
existence of a determined spirit in the assembly to make use 
of the precedent set, perhaps inadvertently, by Lovelace in 
the Jersies. The assembly had succeeded in making the offi- 
cers of government entirely dependent on its votes by grant- 
ing a continuation of the most certain item of revenue for but one 
year, and then had made them feel that dependence by doling out 
to but few of the officers what it chose by way of salary. It 
had even succeeded in it'^ favorite aim of participating in the 
regulation of fees, upon which some officers were entirely depend- 
ent and others dependent in an uncomfortable degree for their 
support. In this last feature the assembly was, however, imme- 
diately checked by the disallowance of the Fee Act and by the 
instruction specifically committing that matter to the governor and 
council.^ In the nature of the case, however, the real struggle 
was bound to come when the assembly should attempt to continue 
its program, with a newly-apponted governor in the possession 
of the executive power. Enough has been said about the designs 
of the assembly to show that what it was really aiming at, and 
what was resisted, later, so vigorously by governor and council, 
was a shifting of the balance of the political forces of the prov- 
ince. Should the assembly succeed in its aim of controlling the 
expenditure for the ordinary support of government in what 
seemed to it the only effective manner of preventing "misman- 



' Col. Doc. V. 1 U), 157. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 133 

agement," it would inevitably mean a greater dependence of the 
executive officers on the legislature which provided their remu- 
neration, than on the governor, whose policy they were supposed 
to assist in executing. If successful, the assembly, would, in 
other words, make its position in the working constitution of the 
province at least co-ordinate with that of the governor. The 
policy actually pursued by the government would then be a real 
compromise between the aims of the assembly on the one hand, 
and the governor in his double capacity on the other, rather than, 
as heretofore, when things had not been colored by partisan fac- 
tion, the policy of the executive, tempered and checked by the ob- 
struction of the assembly. It is impossible to say how fully the 
assembly realized what was essentially at stake. There was un- 
doubtedly much of simply stubborn and unintelligent obstruction. 
Our sources are meagre, and only the outline of policy and hints 
at what the leaders were actually doing are possible. Light on 
the inner working of forces and on the real aims that were con- 
cealed beneath the formal actions taken is at present wanting. 
We have no hint as to any prepossessions or as to any infor- 
mation in regard to the situation, which may have been brought 
by Hunter the new governor, in 17 10. The assembly, which 
was apparently elected after his arrival, contained a majority of 
members who had served in the previous assembly, and, of the 
nev/ members, the larger part were persons who had been promi- 
nent in the affairs of the assembly during the Cornbury admin- 
istration. A very important place among the new members was 
held by Lewis Morris, who represented the borough of Westches- 
ter. Smith represents him as "always busy in matters of a political 
nature, and no man in the colony equalled him in the knowledge 
of the law and the arts of intrigue." He had till recently been a 
resident of New Jersey, where he had had a most active career 
in opposition to the Cornbury system of exploiting the governor's 
office; and Smith apparently applauds Hunter's shrewdness in 
making a confidant of him, "his talents and advantages rendering 
him either a useful friend or formidable foe."^ The two were a 
congenial pair in more than one relation, but Morris' chief func- 
tion was to act as Hunter's legislative "manager ;" and his services 
in bringing the revenue controversy to a settlement were after- 

' Smith, p. 203. Col. Doc. V. 429. 



134 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

wards rewarded by appointment to the chief justiceship and the 
appointment was cordially approved from home on this very 
ground. 

The first meeting of the governor with the assembly partook 
of the nature of a preliminary skirmish. In his opening speech, 
I September, 1710, Hunter communicated the "very particular" 
recommendation of her Majesty that the assembly settle such a 
revenue and for such a term as they themselves, "the most com- 
petent judges, should think sufficient to answer the End." Pay- 
ment of the public debts was also recommended. In the course 
of considering ways and means for support of government, the 
assembly passed bills continuing the excise and the tonnage and 
slave duties, the former for one, the latter for three years ; both 
of which bills unamended by the council, became laws.^ They 
had then resolved to allow certain sums for military "incidents," 
and 2,500 ounces of plate, "towards defraying His Excellency's 
necessary expense for one year." At this point the governor, 
hearing of this proceeding, sent a communication to be entered 
on the journal, containing the instruction allowing his salary of 
ii,200 sterling. He afterwards reported to the Lords of Trade 
that the only effect this had was, that they struck out some items 
that had been usually allowed and reduced others, and that 
finally, because of "warm expressions" which he used in urging 
the assembly to take the governor's message into consideration, 
Lewis Morris had been expelled.^ 

In order to raise a revenue in addition to the excise and the 
tonnage and slave duties, the assembly now began upon a scries 
of bills which were intended to provide a duty on chimneys and 
hearths, and upon goods sold at auction, and also entered upon 
a bill for payment of certain accounts by the treasurer. The 
council attempted to amend all of these. Its objection to the 
chimney tax had reference to the accountability of the treas- 
urer. By the assembly bill he was made accountable only to 
the assembly, whereas the council insisted that, according to 
the practice of the province since 1706, and also according to 
the practice of England, the treasurer in such a case should ac- 
count with the legislature as a whole. The assembly, however, 



*CoI. Laws I. 708-714. 

*Ass. J. I. 280-3. Col. Doc. V. 177. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-1719. 135 

remained constant in its announced determination not to agree to 
amendments by the council to a money bill. The same was the 
case with the act for laying a duty on goods sold at auction, 
though we are not informed as to the reasons for its objection or 
for the insistence of both sides on their original propositions. In 
the case of the bill for the treasurer's paying sundry sums of 
money, the council's amendment was in the line of having the 
treasurer pay a sum not exceeding that mentioned in the assembly 
bill, to such persons and uses as the governor by regular warrant 
should direct. As reasons for insisting on its amendments, 
it invoked the instruction not to suffer public money to issue 
otherwise than by such warrant, the former practice of the prov- 
ince, the practice of other provinces, and of the English parlia- 
ment, which did not appropriate what was given for support of 
government, but gave what was thought necessary in such man- 
ner as left it entirely in the power of the crown "to Dispose of as 
they thought most proper for the support of government and 
for rewarding their servants as they judged they deserved." The 
assembly replied, that what were called amendments would de- 
stroy the very essence and intent of the bill, which was to be 
regarded as consonant with the instructions, since an act of 
governor, council and assembly was a good warrant ; that appro- 
priating acts were no novelty ; that if the council intended that 
the money mentioned in the bill be disposed of according to the 
direction of the bill, there would be no difficulty in consenting 
to it, — "if they do not, plain dealing is best." And finally, the 
object of the bill was declared to be to prevent misapplications, 
"such as have been too apparent in the past." This object they 
deemed "much preferable to any posterior remedy." To this 
the council replied, that the amendments were not destructive 
of the intent of the bill if the intent were to support the govern- 
ment ; denied the equivalency of an act of assembly to a warrant 
of governor and council, and emphasized the distinction pre- 
viously made between acts appropriating money which was voted 
for extraordinary uses and for the ordinary support of govern- 
ment. No acts of the latter description had ever passed 
the parliament of England, and only once in the province ; 
that was in Ingoldsby's administration, when the council were 
not acquainted with the governor's instructions. They affirmed 
their intention of having the money expended for the purposes 



136 I'll ASICS OF KOVAL GOX'KRN MENT 

mentioned in the bill ; "but they think the Queen has the sole right 
of applying money given for the support of the government, and 
the only judge of the merits of her officers, and therefore they 
made those amendments, for plain dealing is best." Finally, they 
deprecated the idea of misapplications under present circum- 
stances, and pointed out that the bill, as amended, sufficiently pro- 
vided against drawing out any more money, than that expressed 
in the bill.^ The thoroughgoing character of the difference be- 
tween the two houses and the spirit in which the discussion was 
carried on are sufficiently indicated by these rather full extracts. 
As the season was far advanced, and the hope of reaching a settle- 
ment on these measures was slight, the assembly was prorogued 
without the passage of these acts into laws. By the failure of 
the bills for the chimney and auction duties, the expected revenue 
was reduced far below even what the act for the treasurer's pay- 
ing sundry sums, had appropriated, viz., £2,307 ; and by the 
failure of the last-named act the public officers were left without 
support. From now till 1713, they were maintained largely on 
the personal credit of the governor.- 

Hunter's correspondence with the home government shows 
that he had not been idle during the session. He asserts that he 
had privately suggested to several members that the receiver 
general might be made accountable to the assembly as well as to 
the crown, and that he had worked out a somewhat elaborate 
system designed to prevent any governor and council from again 
loading the country with debt through warrants. This was in- 
tended to meet one of the reasons given by assembly members 
themselves in explanation of their backwardness in supporting the 
government. The othe "pretended" reason was the Imrden on 
the country which was involved in the taxes for the ill-starred 
Canada expedition. The true reasons, so far as he could make 
them out "from private discourse with the most considerable 
amongst them." were the exemption of the neighboring govern- 
ments from such heavy expense in supporting the government, 
and an opinion which was opposed to the right of the crown 
to allot salaries, on the ground that if i 1,200 were appointed, 
£12,000 might be. The third reason he held to be. the fact, that, 
by reason of the per diem allowance to each assemblyman, a 

•Ass. J. I. 284-7. Col. Mss. LIV. \1\, 124. 
-Col. Doc. V. 178. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-1719. 137 

number of them practically supported themselves, by acquiring 
a reputation among their constituents of saving the country's 
money, and thus getting an almost permanent hold on office. As 
a remedy for the situation he could only suggest the passage of 
an act of parliament providing for payment by all lands granted 
or to be granted, of a quit rent of two shillings six oence per one 
hundred acres, which he believed would go a long ways towards 
supporting the government ; or the passage of another act of 
parliament levying duties on imports and exports, and laying 
an excise — but he supposed that in that case it would be made 
of general application throughout the colonies. The only com- 
munication from the Lords of Trade in reply to these repre- 
sentations that could have reached the governor before meet- 
ing the assembly again in April, 171 1, was to the effect that the 
information had been communicated to the queen ; so that the 
governor's vigorous speech at the opening of the session could 
hardly be described as made only after he had learned the senti- 
ments of the ministry, as Smith intimates. The sting of this 
speech consisted principally in the suggestion that rumors might 
gain credit at last, "that however your Resentment has fallen upon 
Governors, it is the Government that you dislike ;" and in the as- 
sertion that "giving Money for Support of Government and dis- 
posing of it at your Pleasure is the same with giving none at all." 
Because of its resentment at this speech, in wdiich the governor 
plainly took up the cause of the council in the recent disputes, 
the assembly chose to find a scruple in the fact that the proclama- 
tion proroguing them from the original date of summons had 
been dated at Burlington, New Jersey. The governor found 
himself obliged to follow the advice of the council, that, since 
the assembly was resolved not to act, in spite of the opinion of 
the Lords of Trade quieting their pretended scruple, it would 
be necessary to dissolve them, "which they would otherwise 
doe themselves."^ Hunter now represented himself to the home 
government as at a loss what to do till action might be taken 
from home. He had no expectations that a new assembly would 
be any more tractable, "the Resolutions of putting themselves 
on the same foote with the Charter Governments being too 
general to be allayed by any measures that can be taken on this 

•Col. Doc. V. 179-80. 186. As.s. J. I. 287-8. Council J. I. 311. 
Smith, p. 204. 



138 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

side." His desires with regard to action by the home govern- 
ment seem to have been justified by the proceedings of the Lords 
of Trade, who with unusual celerity had recommended that the 
governor be directed to intimate to the assembly the queen's 
displeasure, and the likelihood of the passage of an act of par- 
liament granting a revenue for them. And within a month they 
had. as ordered by the privy council, prepared a draft of a bill 
for that purpose, which, however, was not perfected before the 
adjournment of parliament.^ 

In the meantime a new assembly had been elected, and 
proved indeed to be practically the same in membership as the pre- 
ceding body. Its first session, in July, 171 1, was taken up wholly 
with action relative to the Canada expedition of that year. Bills 
of credit to the amount of £10,000 were ordered to be issued and 
provision was made for their redemption by a direct tax, due to be 
paid in five annual installments, beginning in 1714. Six hundred 
men were raised and commissioners were appointed for purchas- 
ing, transporting and caring for provisions for the troops, having 
the same relation to the treasurer as in the case of the preceding 
expedition. In all these proceedings, as in the act for continuing 
the excise for two years, no difficulty in the relations between the 
assembly and council developed — that is, on the surface. The 
pains taken to avoid the slightest opportunity for trouble of that 
sort is indicated by the governor's procedure on finding certain 
mistakes in the bills as they came from the assembly. He re- 
turned the bills privately, after their first reading in council, as 
though they had not been read at all, and with the request that 
the mistakes be amended in their own house. "This conduct 
. . . I was obliged to follow or baulk the Expedition."^ 

In a most interesting disquisition to the Lords of Trade 
upon the design of the assemblies on the continent, by claiming 
all the privileges of a House of Commons and stretching them 
even beyond what they were ever imagined to be there, to attain a 
condition which would result in a federative empire. Hunter 
suggests as a temporary measure, that a royal letter from the 
queen be dispatched, reminding the assembly that "all such 
privileges as they clayme as bodyes politick they hold of her 

' Col. Doc. V. 192, 197, 209, 285. 

= Col. Laws I. 723, 727, 735, 737. Col. Doc. V. 263. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 139 

especiall grace and noe longer than they shall use them for her 
interest and for the support of her government." This he sug- 
gested not with the expectation that it would contribute to the 
settling of a revenue, but in the hope that it would help to keep 
them in bounds in other matters.^ 

It was apparently, then, not without official inspiration that 
the dispute between the council and assembly at the fall session 
of 171 1 turned largely on the discussion of the status of the two 
houses in the matter of financial legislation. The occasion of the 
dispute was furnished by two bills sent up by the assembly, one 
providing for an increase of the tonnage duty, and the other for 
a duty on chimnies and for a poll-tax. The council's objection 
to both bills was that the duties were to be paid to the colony 
treasurer instead of to the receiver general. By the latter bill, 
the treasurer was made accountable to no one, and by the former 
to the governor and assembly. The amendments were directed 
toward making the monies payable to the receiver general, who, 
as a concession, was made accountable to governor, council and 
assembly, as well as to the queen. The proceeds of the tonnage 
duty were further directed to be issued in a manner pursuant to the 
instructions. To all of this the assembly replied by merely 
returning the bills, with notification of its resolve not to admit 
such amendments. The same old issue was thus joined again. In 
the exchange of reasons in support of their respective positions, 
the council upbraided the assembly by citation of previous in- 
stances of their allowing such amendments. It then went on 
to justify its right by asserting the equality of the position of 
the two houses in the legislature, both being constituted by the 
same power, viz., "the mere grace of the Crown signified in the 
Governor's Commission," and by the opinion of the Lords of 
Trade obtained in the course of the struggle for the treasurer. 
The bulk of the assembly's reply is sufficiently remarkable to 
justify quotation entire: '"Tis true the Share the Council have (if 
any) in the Legislation does not flow from any Title they have, 
from the Nature of that Board, which is only to advise, or from 
their being another distinct State or Rank of People, in the Con- 
stitution which they are not, being all Commons, but only from 
the meer Pleasure of the Prince signified in the Commission. 



' Co]. Doc. V. 255-6. 



140 PIIASliS OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

"On the contrary, the inherent Ris^ht the yVsscmhly have to 
dispose of the Money of the Freemen of this Colony, does not 
proceed from any Commission, Letters Patent, or other Grant 
from the Crown, but from the free Choice and Election of the 
People; who ought not to be divested of their Property (nor justly 
can) without their Consent. 

"Any former Condescensions of otlier Assemblies, will not 
prescribe to the Council, a Privilege to make any of those Amend- 
ments and therefore they have it not. 

"If the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, did 
conceive no Reason, why the Council should not have Right to 
amend Money Bills, is far from concluding there are none ; the 
Assembly understand them very well, and are sufficiently con- 
vinced of the Necessity they are in, not to admit of any Incroach- 
ment so much to their Prejudice."^ 

Bills directing the treasurer to pay certain sums of money 
for some of the usual purposes of government and for certain saN 
aries, appropriating a definite sum for each purpose and for each 
salary, were also sent up, and on the repeated attempt of the 
council to amend them, met with the same fate. The temper of 
the assembly towards the governor personally is indicated by its 
passage of acts for repair of fortifications and for support of 
troops on winter service on the frontier, by which the sums were 
directed to be paid to the governor with only general directions as 
to their use. The general temper of the assembly on the issue 
under discussion was, however, alarmingly indicated, in the 
opinion expressed by the council in its representation to the 
crown, by the resolves into which they entered at the close 
of the session, to the effect that establishing fees without consent 
in general assembly was contrary to law ; and that erecting a court 
of chancery without consent in general assembly was contrary 
to law, without precedent and of dangerous consequence to the 
liberty and property of the subject. The opinion of both gover- 
nor and council on these proceedings is well reflected in Hun- 
ter's words : — "now the mask is thrown off ; they have called 
in question the Council's share in legislation, trumpt up an in- 
herent right, declared powers granted by her Majesty's letters 
patent to be against law and have but one short step to make 

' Ass. J. I. 307. Col. Doc. V. 293. 



IN NEW YORK, 1691-1719. I4I 

towards what I am unwilling to name. The Connecticut scheme 
is what they have in their heads. "^ 

The ambitions of the assembly were furtlier displayed in 
their attempted acts of legislation. After the disallowance of the 
fee act of 1709, Hunter had been instructed specifically to regu- 
late and establish fees with the assistance of the council, and of 
this the assembly had been informed. In making a Table of Fees 
the council's opinion, that they had been too high, prevailed 
against the governor's judgment, and the resulting ordinance was 
a grievance to some of the officers. The assembly had never- 
theless persisted in the attempt to attain a share in control of this 
matter by establishing the precedent of enacting the ordinance 
as established by the council in the form of a statute ; but as the 
Lords of Trade had manifested a certain hesitation in regard to 
certain items as just established, the council let the assembly bill 
lie on the table. The assembly's resolve on the subject was 
later declared by the Lords of Trade to be "very presumptuous," 
though in the same sentence they disclaimed objection to the enact- 
ment of the ordinance into law." 

The ambition of the assembly to venture upon regions of 
power hitherto untrodden is further indicated by the act for the 
assigning of sheriffs, an attempted invasion of the governor's 
prerogative of appointment, according to Hunter ; and by the act 
for an agency, which, by the same person, was described as an 
attempt to make the agent a representative exclusively of the 
assembly, by making his appointment, instruction and support a 
matter in that body's entire control. According to Hunter's in- 
formation, the assembly's choice, in case of success, would have 
fallen on Colonel Lodwick, of London, whose letters to DePeyster 
had been extensively used to obstruct the settlement of a revenue. 
The assembly had also used its legislative powers in obstructing 
the attempt of the governor and council to develop the crown's 
territorial revenue, by pigeon-holing a bill for the more effectual 
discovery and payment of quit-rents.^ 

The situation of the governor was now becoming more and 
more difficult. The retirement from office in England of the min- 

' Col. Laws I. 746, 750. Col. Doc. V. 296. Ass. J. 3, 309. 

' Ass. J. I. 274. Col. Doc. V. 184, 216, 230^1, 238, 298, 333, 359. 

' Col. Doc. V. 299, 300. 



142 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

istry which was responsible for the Palatine enterprise suspended 
the payment of bills which had been contracted by Hunter for 
their subsistence. Probably from the same cause, his bills in- 
curred in connection with his duties in provisioning the Canada 
expedition met with obstruction. These, and the like circum- 
stances connected with the refusal of the assembly to proceed in 
the required manner in the support of the provincial government, 
put him in the greatest financial embarrassment. His situation 
also gave opportunity to his enemies to play the familiar game 
of discrediting him in the province by tales of his lack of "in- 
terest" at court ; at the same time that, by obstructive tactics, 
they prevented a settlement of the revenue in the hope of getting 
him actually recalled on that score. The most active force in 
this lobby at court seems to have been Cornbury, now Earl of 
Clarendon ; while in the province the Anglican clergy^, led by 
Vesey, of New York, by the most ingenious attempts to get 
themselves persecuted, labored hard to raise the cry of "The 
Church in danger," with the purpose of getting Nicholson, the 
zealous Churchman, appointed to Hunter's place. We have the 
testimony of Colden to the efifect that the clouds of disfavor sur- 
rounding Plunter on all these accounts were gradually but very 
effectively dispelled by a real personal popularity, which before 
long became a definite force in the political situation.^ 

Under these circumstances, the two sessions of 17 12 did little 
to advance the controversy. At the autumn session the gov- 
ernor in his speech proposed the scheme which he had mentioned 
privately to members of the previous assembly. The scheme 
provided elaborately and. it would seem, effectively, against the 
issue at any given time of warrants for more money than was in 
the hands of the collector, chiefly by precautions for keeping the 
governor and council informed, and against partiality on the part 
of the collector in making payments of warrants. The assembly 
could not he brought to pay any attention to this scheme, and in 
general continued their policy of "bantering the government by 
proposing bills they know cannot pass, or, if passed, would raise 
no money ;" though bills for the payment of a few items of gov- 
ernment support were grudgingly allowed to slip through without 

' Col. Doc. V. 400, 402-3, 420, 447-453, 310-329, 336-8, 356-7. N. Y. 
Hist. Soc. Colls. 1868, pp. 200-202. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 143 

the objectionable features, and every hint was given to the gover- 
nor of a willingness to make him, personally, "easy." The climax 
af the assembly's "undutiful conduct" was reached, when after 
being informed of the council's representation to the crown con- 
cerning their proceedings the year before, they composed an ad- 
dress to the queen, complaining of being misrepresented and de- 
siring permission to maintain an agent. For this "disrespectful 
behaviour" the governor thought it necessary to dissolve them, 
though he had no hope of a new assembly.^ 

The home government in the meantime supported the posi- 
tion taken by the council, specifically rebuked the assembly for 
its claims and revived the plan of proceeding by act of parlia- 
ment. The sincerity of their maneuvering with the weapon of 
parliamentary interference is, however, seriously impugned by a 
passage in one of Hunter's letters, which strongly intimates that 
the bill prepared and introduced was never intended to be passed ; 
as well as by the opinion of some of Hunter's friends that the set- 
tling of a revenue, even by act of parliament, would mean his 
removal, to make way for a ministerial favorite, now that the place 
had been made "easy."- More efficacious in the improvement of 
the position of the executive officers was the activity of the Lords 
of Trade and of the attorney-general in support of Hunter's ef- 
forts, through the issue of chancery writs, to collect quit rents 
and their arrears. After several years during which payments 
of this kind had wholly ceased, this practice had the effect of soon 
bringing the total produce of this item to some £300 or £400, and 
finally even to i6oo. An effort was also begun at this time to 
realize effectually on such regalian rights as the licensing of 
the whale-fishery, and the escheat of real property. These efforts 
could not, however, be expected to bear fruit for some time yet, 
and in the meantime the issue between the governor and council 
and the assembly was as pressing and significant as ever.^ 

In the elections for a new assembly, held in the spring of 
1 71 3, the governor seems to have made every effort short of 
interference with the personnel of county officers having to do 



' Ass. J. I. 321. Col. Doc. V. 339-40, 348. 350, 356. 
'Col. Doc. V. 830, 833, 356, 359, 367, 389, 543. 
' Col. Doc. V. 357, 362-8. 368-70, 378, 555-61, 498-9. 



144 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

with elections. Smith describes the elections as "very hot." Six 
changes in membership appeared, and one constituency was added 
— Dutchess County being separated from Ulster and given one 
member. With a possible change of seven votes, the majority 
was, however, still "in the interest of the late Assembly." The 
governor himself was exceedingly skeptical, and expected a 
speedy dissolution, after which be warned the Lords of Trade to 
"expect to hear of alterations in the commissions of peace and of 
the militia, that ill men may no longer use her Majesty's author- 
ity against her."^ Nevertheless he met this assembly with a stout 
front, and in his speech at the opening of the session informed 
them that they were called to settle a revenue for the support of the 
government and not to settle the government itself ; re-affirmed 
his course of conduct with reference to method of support ; inti- 
mated his intention not to pass any important act of legislation 
without efficient procedure in providing for a support of gov- 
ernment ; and hinted again at the threat of parliamentary inter- 
ference. He suggested more frequent consultation with the 
council in framing bills, to avoid the necessity of amendments 
and the disputes over the right of making them.^ 

With this session began the slow, hesitating process, at all 
stages uncertain of ultimate success, which actually served to 
remove the political confusion of the province. It is impos- 
sible to know to what extent the settlement was conceived of as 
a systematic affair. In its actual achievement the piece- 
meal method appears, and at no time did Hunter appear in any 
degree confident of its efficacy. It seems likely, from the tone 
of his references at all stages of the affair, that the enterprise 
grew on the hands of all concerned, till a point was reached when 
the possible significance of what had already been attained became 
evident, and then the governor bent all his energies to the preser- 
vation of a system which was designed to protect what had al- 
ready been reached. The first line of policy looking towards any- 
thing permanent in its nature into which the assembly entered, 
was that of the payment of the public debts. Rehabilitation of 
the public credit in some way had been made at first a matter of 
equal importance, in the governor's recommendations, with the 
support of government ; but the contest seems almost immedi- 



'Col. Doc. V. 3fi4. Smith, 223. 
'Ass. J. I. 333. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 145 

ately to have centered on the latter feature. This assembly 
seemed ready to beghi at the other end of the problem, and 
spent much time during its first session in May and June of 
171 3, in considering the report of its. committee on claims, the 
appointment of which had been one of the few achievements 
of the previous assembly. As the fruit of these deliberations, 
a bill was presented to the governor at the close of the session 
granting the excise as then managed for twenty years, and 
appropriating the proceeds to the payment of the public debts 
in such manner as future legislation should determine. The 
governor was evidently unwilling to commit himself to a meas- 
ure which put such great sums into the hands of the treasurer, 
without assurance that the proposal to pay the debts was made 
in good faith ; and did not give his assent till the reassembling 
of the legislature in the fall of the same year.^ 

In the meantime a duty on goods sold at auction had been 
granted without specific application, and, for the first time since 
1709, a "Supply towards supporting the government." It was only 
for one year, and was inadequate, viz. £2,800, to be raised by 
duties on imported rum and wines and European goods from the 
plantations, with discriminations in the rates in favor of local 
shipping. But the objectionable features of previous acts were 
omitted, and the act provided that, if these duties should not 
amount to £2,800, the treasurer, on certificate to that effect by the 
receiver general, should make up the deficiency out of any public 
money in his hands. The receiver general was made accountable 
for the proceeds of the duties to the governor, council and as- 
sembly.^ 

The governor was not satisfied with this as a support of gov- 
ernment, but the fact that both sides should have cooperated at all 
in an arrangement involving so many departures from the ideals 
for which they had striven seems to argue that this was only a 
part of a more complex affair. That this was so, seems to be 
borne out in part by the character of the act for the payment of 
the debts, which was only passed after a long session in 1714 
which was exclusively devoted to that subject. The act provided 
for the payment of accounts amounting to £27,684, the payment 



'Ass. J. I. 342-5. Col. Doc. V. 365-7. Col. Laws I. 785. 
" Col. Laws L 779. 

no 



146 PHASES OF K(»V.\I. t;u\ i:i<.\ iM ENT 

including what the governor had expended on his personal credit 
in the course of maintaining the government during the years of 
controversy ; accounts presented by a number of prominent Anti- 
Leislerians for disbursements in connection with the conduct of 
government for a number of years past ; an account of over 
£2,000 due to the Leisler family ; payments to military and civil 
officers covering nearly the whole period since Leisler ; and the 
per diem allowance to members of the assembly for the time of the 
long session which was occupied with this subject. Golden 
charged the assembly in this proceeding with partiality for the 
Leislerians, and asserted that the misapplications of previous gov- 
ernors were not to be compared with the profuseness of this body. 
But a dispassionate view .of the matter will credit the preamble of 
the act with more sincerity than Golden would allow lo it. This 
preamble recited the great misapplications, the resulting destruc- 
tion of public credit, the sufifering that would ensue upon repudi- 
ation of the claims involved in the unpaid warrants, which were 
circulating in a way like bills of credit ; and stated the object of 
their proceedings to be the restoration of credit by the discharge 
of these claims and the fixing it on such a foundation as would 
conduce to the good of the queen's service and to the settling 
the minds of the inhabitants and Ijurying strifes and animosities. 
For such a purpose it is not surprising that some of the claims 
discharged should have a bearing upon matters erstwhile of ])ar- 
tisan significance. But if the analysis of the payments authorized 
by the act be correct, the proportion of such payments cannot be 
called excessive, while, in its efifects, the act, according to Hunter, 
made a fundamental contribution towards the object mentioned 
in the preamble. The act further i)rovided for the issue of bills 
of credit for the amount which was ordered to be paid as the 
province's indebtedness, and for the redemption of the bills at 
periodic intervals as the proceeds of the excise came into the 
hands of the treasurer. The act included a form of oath to be 
taken by the treasurer and by the auditors appointed for the ]nir- 
poses of the act ; made the treasurer accountable to governor, 
council and assembly ; and provided in set terms for the disposi- 
tion of all the money to be raised in the future by act of assembly 
and lodged in the treasurer's hands, only in accordance with acts 
of assembly ; and for the disposition of all money raised by act of 
assembly for support of government and lodged in the hands of 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 147 

the receiver general, by warrant from the governor and council 
with the consent of the majority of the council present.^ 

In defense of the bill against the attacks made upon it by the 
obstructive lobby at court, Hunter described it as practically a 
bill for the support of government, since it provided for expenses 
incurred in past support. He pointed with pride to the reviving 
prosperity of the province, resulting from the superior credit of 
the bills issued by the act, and intimated that a formidable part of 
the opposition to this and associated measures was carried on by 
those who, in the previously distressful condition of public credit, 
had had what amounted to a monopoly of the control of availa- 
ble capital. The council and assembly joined in an address to 
the Lords of Trade in further defence of the act, commenting 
with fine scorn on the spectacle of Cornbury's complaint of unjust 
treatment, "seeing the money given for the Support of this gov- 
ernment Dureing the hole Course of his administration was Suf- 
ficient with any tolerable good Management to have Defrayed 
the proper necessary Expences of it." Whether due to the vig- 
orous character of these representations or to the precaution 
taken by the assembly to appropriate by resolve ^310 out of the 
next year's excise towards getting the royal assent to the act, 
it was promptly confirmed at home and a long step was thereby 
taken toward the removal of the previous confusion. 

Not the least important feature of the act was the clause 
making declaration of the future policy of the assembly in pro- 
viding for the custody of public money. On careful inspection 
of this clause it will be observed that only in case money granted 
for support of government was directed by the terms of the act 
to be lodged in the hands of the receiver general, was it to be 
issued out by warrant from the governor and council. How 
much deliberate guile there was in the careful wording of this 
clause we have no means of knowing. It was afterwards de- 
scribed by the auditor general of the plantations as a "quirk"' 
by means of which the assembly "gott the entire Receipt and dis- 
position of His Majesty's Revenue into their own power." And 
as a matter of fact practically no money thereafter granted for 
the support of government was directed to be lodged in the hands 
of the receiver general, and his duties were thus reduced almost 



'Col. Laws I. 815. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls. 1868, p. 202. 



148 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

solely to the receipt of the quit rents and administration of the 
imperial trade system/ 

During the process of adjusting the matter of public debts, 
a certain provision already referred to, had been made for the 
support of government for one year ; and at the expiration of this 
period the same arrangement, with some slight modification, was 
made for another year. At the same time a tonnage duty and an 
import duty on slaves, to be collected by an officer appointed by 
the assembly and to be paid to the treasurer, was granted for two 
years. No object was mentioned to which this duty was to be 
applied, the disposition being referred to future legislation. But 
the absence of clauses making specific appropriation of money 
given for support of government, which had been a feature of 
this bill in previous sessions, brought it within the limits of the 
governor's competency of assent. Once the money was actually 
available for public purposes, it would depend on the effectiveness 
of the governor's "interest" in the assembly how much of it 
could be directed by legislative act to the support of government. 
At this session also, the proceeds from peddlers' licenses were 
granted for four years towards the support of government with- 
out any appropriating clauses, and were to be paid to the receiver 
general — one of a very few such instances. The management 
of the excise was also changed, by taking it from the hands of the 
justices of the peace in the counties and the mayors and aldermen 
of the cities, and giving it to commissioners appointed in the 
body of the act. who were required to give security and were 
allowed an assigned per cent, of the proceeds. - 

We have no means of knowing how well justified was Hun- 
ter's stubborn skepticism, even after the passage of the debt bill 
— the "first long bill," as it was called — as to the assembly's in- 
tentions concerning the support of government ; for the demise 
of the crown worked the dissolution of this body. The body 
which came together in May, 171 5. contained a majority of mem- 
bers of the previous assembly. There were six changes in mem- 
bership, the delegation of three from Albany County and of two 
from Westchester County and the representative from Rensse- 
laerwick being entirely new. There was- also an enlargement of 



• Ass. J. I. 366. Col. Doc. V. 380, 494, 405-6, 412. 

* Col. Laws I. 801, 805, 812. Col. Doc. V. 377-80. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 149 

membership due to the return of two representatives from Dutch- 
ess County, instead of one. Nevertheless, according to Hunter's 
"plain and true history" of the affair, related to the Lords of 
Trade, it was only after the expulsion of Mulford, a turbulent 
member from Suffolk County, that "that part of the house that 
was in earnest" about the revenue "got the majority." Appar- 
ently, then, even under the circumstances about to be related, it 
was only by a tour de force that effective action in the matter of 
a relatively permanent support of government could be attained. 
Hunter frankly sets forth in his letter to the Lords of Trade, 
which is our only source of information, that an act for settling 
a revenue for the support of government during five years, and 
an act for a general naturalization were deliberately exchanged 
the one for the other by the parties to the controversy. Through- 
out his whole communication there runs a flavor of semi-defiant 
apology. His experience on the spot convinces him that the price 
paid for a settlement is not too high, but he is evidently not so 
sure that the Lords of Trade will view it in that light.^ 

The "Revenue Act" granted, for five years, "for the better 
defraying the publick and necessary charges ... of this gov- 
ernment," duties on imported wines and distilled liquors, cocoa, 
European goods, and slaves ; and also tonnage duties, making 
distinctions in the rates between goods imported from the place of 
growth or manufacture and from other places, and excepting 
from the tonnage duty coasting sloops from the neighboring colo- 
nies, ships directly from Great Britain and vessels colony-owned 
or built. Provision was made for weighing at the King's beam 
all exports of bread and flour, as well as both exports and imports 
of the goods on which duties were granted by the act. Practi- 
cally the same machinery for collection was provided as had pre- 
viously existed, but in addition importers were required to give 
to the treasurer copies of entries of goods with the collector and 
receiver general, and on payment of the duties, the treasurer 
was to issue a certificate of such payment, upon which the col- 
lector was to permit the landing of the goods. This extra elab- 
oration of procedure, necessitated by the obtrusion of the treas- 
erer into a realm formerly monopolized by the collector, was 
later made subject of complaint. The proceeds of the duties were 

' Col. Doc. V. 378-80, 416. Ass. J. I. 332. Council J. I. 381. 



150 I'ilASES OK ROVAL GOVERNMENT 

required to be paid to the treasurer. Bills of credit to the value 
of £6,000 were authorized to be issued, with the usual arrange- 
ments for redemption. The treasurer was required to pay out the 
bills of credit, and all sums accruing from the act over and above 
the bills of credit, to such persons and in such manner as should 
be directed by warrants passed in council by the governor. The 
warrants were to be numbered and paid in course according to 
number, aiul the clerk of the council was to signify, immediately 
after passing tlie same, the warrants, their numbers and the 
persons to whom they were payable.^ 

Without going into a description of the naturalization act, 
for which this revenue act was exchanged, it may be sufficient 
to remark, in Hunter's words, that, if approved, it would have 
the efi'ect of uniting the minds of the majority of the considerable 
people of the province, and that, if not approved, it would do no 
harm if it lay for some time without action. It was one of those 
measures whicli. during the stormy years of controversy, the as- 
sembly had shown itself "fond" of ; and it had passed through 
all the stages of legislation except the assent of the governor. 
Thus, as the act for payment of public debts had prepared the 
v\'ay for the revenue by rehabilitating credit, so this act, by con- 
tributing to the quieting of apprehensions concerning the possi- 
bility of the strict enforcement of all the legal consequences of the 
anomalous mixture of national elements in the population, ac- 
complished its share in "a lasting settlement on this hitherto un- 
settled and ungovernable Province." Hunter was evidently 
doubtful about the reception of this act at home and tried to 
obtain the insertion of a suspending clause, but he had to yield 
on this point. The opinion of the attorney general in reference 
to the act was decidedly dubious, and there is at present no evi- 
dence that it was either confirmed or disallowed.^ 

There are several noteworthy features about this revenue 
act which bear testimony to its character as a compromise settle- 
ment. In the first place, it is to be observed that the treasurer, 
not the receiver general, was made the custodian of the funds 
arising from the act. This was evidently regarded as an objection 
by the governor, but he observed that, as the bills of credit au- 
thorized by the act were perforce lodged in the treasurer's hands, 



' Col. Laws I. 847. 

'Col. Laws L 858. Col. Doc. V. 416, 495. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. I5I 

it was necessary that the funds for sinking them should be in the 
same custody. Further, he asserted that it was done with the 
consent of the receiver general himself, who gave the casting 
vote in the council against amendments designed to defeat the 
bill. Thus one feature of the assembly's policy had been gained. 
In the method of disposition of the funds compromise is equally 
conspicuous. It will be remembered that a cardinal feature of 
objection to- the assembly's bills for the support of government 
had been the clauses making appropriations for the payment of 
salaries, thus depriving the crown of its power of rewarding its 
servants according to its own judgment. The terms of the act 
provided merely for the issue of the money by the treasurer, in 
accordance with warrants from the governor and council. On the 
surface, then, the directions of the instructions were technically 
complied with. But in connection with this act, (and here Hun- 
ter's candor deserts him, for he fails to mention this circumstance 
in his official correspondence) resolves were passed, appropriating 
salaries and regularly recurring incidental expenses for support 
of government. And we have Hunter's own testimony before the 
Lords of Trade at a later time, to the fact that he gave his word 
that he would issue the warrants in accordance with these re- 
solves, and that he regularly did so during the rest of his admin- 
istration. This was a compromise in which, as to .essentials of 
financial management, the assembly had certainly the weight of 
advantage. They had, it is true, yielded the point of annual 
grant ; but the feature just described, together with the precau- 
tionary processes suggested by the governor and finally adopted, 
would certainly overbalance the five year term and the preser- 
vation of the form of disposition by warrant.^ 

There is another compromise feature in the act, which has 
not yet been mentioned. It was from the first a theory with 
Hunter that the system of compensation of assemblymen by the 
counties which they represented contributed to their obstructive 
attitude. So long as the per diem allowance was regularly forth- 
coming from their counties, an attitude on legislative propositions 
which enabled them to pose before their constituents as careful 
husbands of the colony resources, and at the same time multiplied 
the necessity for sessions of many days, enabled the assembly- 



'Ass. J. I. 375. Col. Doc. V. 559. 



152 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

man to make his office more profitable than his rej^^ular occupa- 
tion. Hunter had from the first endeavored to get the system 
changed, and had succeeded in having the allowance for the 
session which passed the debt bill charged to the funds appro- 
priated for the payment of the debts. This was defended at 
the time on the ground that the long session had been devoted 
almost exclusively to that subject, and that it was equitable 
that the funds from which those who benefited by the act were 
to be paid should bear the expense of the session. He labored 
to have this allowance also changed to the revenue for the whole 
period for which it was granted, believing that the saving in 
the local levies of the constituencies would be approved there 
and that the arrangement might be made permanent. He failed 
in this ; but succeeded in having the arrangement tried for one 
year, and as a matter of fact, this was the method followed 
thereafter in the compensation of members of the assembly.^ 

Still another compromise feature appears in the settlement 
of the dispute over the matter of an agency, which had been run- 
ning for nearly as long as the revenue controversy. It will be 
remembered that the assembly's bills had provided for an exclu- 
sive control by that body of the appointment, instruction and sup- 
port of an agent. At the session which granted the revenue, an 
act was passed, appointing John Champantc, a person much ap- 
proved by the governor, as agent, providing for his instruction 
either by the governor and council or by the assemblv. and direct- 
ing the treasurer to pay the agent five hundred ounces of plate 
on the order of the assembly, signed by the speaker.^ 

Enough has been said to show how extensive were the ramifi- 
cations of the settlement of the dispute between the prerogative 
and popular bodies, of which the matter of the revenue was the 
nucleus. As a method of support of government, this settlement 
proved to be comparatively permanent in its nature. After a 
grant for one year, in 1720, the revenue was continued with cer- 
tain modifications, for successive periods of three or five years 
till 1737, when a new contest over annual appropriating acts arose 
under a different set of conditions. 

In a review of the financial methods of the province the pro- 
gress and development of the power of the assembly over ex- 

'Col. Doc. V. 180, 404, 41f). 

'Col. Laws I. 881. Col. Doc. V. 420. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 153 

penditure, as well as provision, of public income, is marked. Be- 
ginning with a condition of affairs in which even a knowledge of 
the disposition of funds voted for extraordinary uses was prac- 
tically unattainable, the assembly used its power of the purse as 
a weapon to induce the avoidance by the expending body of a just 
suspicion of misuse. Then, on the findings of its committee of 
accounts, it proceeded to establish control over funds for extra- 
ordinary uses by providing for the separate custody and disposi- 
tion of such funds by its own agent, the colony treasurer. As we 
have seen, this was not attained without a struggle. Becoming 
further convinced of the inadequacy of the system of expenditure 
of funds for the support of government by the experience under 
Cornbury, at the earliest practicable moment it attempted reform 
by a project far too radical in its form to be practicable under 
any conscientious royal governor. By aiming so high, and by 
stubborn persistence in denial of supply in the face of threats of 
parliamentary interference, it was enabled, in the resulting com- 
promise to attain an arrangement which secured to it substantial 
control of the main items of governmental support which it rec- 
ognized as regular and necessary. In view of the original cir- 
cumstances of New York as a conquered province, proceeding 
under the Revolution settlement on the theory that "England, 
having granted ... a representative Assembly was bound 
to abide by the logic of that grant as . . . illustrated and 
enforced in the history of her own Commons," this constitutes 
certainly a remarkable achievement.^ 

The controversy over the method of support of government 
and the character of its settlement as just related, constitute 
from the purely financial aspect an important feature of provin- 
cial development. Any account of this development, however, 
would be incomplete without at least a hint as to the general effect 
of the struggle upon the balance of political forces in the con- 
stitution of the province. Reference has already been made to 
the share in the settlement of the revenue matter contributed by 
Hunter's personal popularity, aided by the skill of Morris as 
legislative manager in working up a "Governor's interest" in the 
assembly. The passage of the revenue act, even under the hard 
conditions referred to, is the best evidence as to the substantial 



' S. N. D. North in Mag. Am. Hist. III. IGl. 



154 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

character of this "interest." We have also noticed how widely 
extended were the elements of compromise associated with the 
passage of this act. From that time Hunter's chief policy seems 
to have been directed to the task of defending- at home the meas- 
ures already accomplished, and equally to the perfection of the 
working relation between himself and the assembly, already so 
fruitful, for the purpose of preserving what had been gained. In 
the former purpose he was finally successful against the efforts of 
a determined opposition, in having all the main features of the 
settlement either actually confirmed or laid on the table. This 
opposition drew strength both from provincial and from English 
sources, was so formidable as to give the governor great anxiety, 
and finally formed one of the strong reasons for his return to 
England in 1719.^ In order to the continuation of the work begun 
by the revenue act, a number of things remained to be done. 
There were still outstanding many claims against the government, 
of equal justice with those already satisfied, and the quieting and 
settling work must be completed by attention to them. The rev- 
enue act left unprovided for, a number of items not likely to ap- 
pear regularly in the provincial budget, such as repairs made 
necessary by the long denial of supply, expenses of running a 
boundary line, compensation for slaves executed at the time of the 
negro plot. For these, as well as other purposes, a more numer- 
ous, as well as more reliable, majority in the assembly was re- 
quired, if the governor was to be able to carry out his policy. 
Accordingly we find Hunter availing himself of the arrival of his 
new commission as an excuse for a dissolution and the summons 
of a new assembly. In the elections, his "interest" must have been 
perniciously active, for he later took pride in his success in hav- 
ing had "the luck or art to get the better" of his opponents, par- 
ticularly in New York City, which returned an entirely new dele- 
gation. Several changes occurred in the rural delegations, and 
the number of the house was increased by the addition of one 
new constituency — the Manor of Livingston, — and by an addi- 
tional member from Orange County. This brought the total 
number to twenty-six, and established an equality of representa- 
tion from the counties, except in the case of New York and Al- 
bany. It is not without significance that this very rapid increase 



' Col. Doc. V. 493-4. 512. 514-5, 521-6. 



IN NEW YORK, 169I-I719. 155 

of total membership from twenty-two to twenty-six was made 
entirely in the time of Hunter's administration. \ It is presum- 
ably at this time, too, that the custom developed of making the 
governor's use of his patronage in the counties a matter of bar- 
gain with the assemblymen representing the counties, which 
Burnet, Clarke, and Morris later refer to as fully established." 

In this reciprocal relation as to county patronage and good 
behavior during the sessions, as well as in the mutual benefits 
derivable from the barter of grants of revenue for favorite meas- 
ures of doubtful reception at home, is to be found the basis of 
the "System" of political relations which obtained for the next 
twenty' years. Its immediate fruit is to be found in a second bill 
for the payment of debts, which, including many items of necessity 
for the welfare of the government as well as for payment of purely 
Leislerian claims, was deemed by Hunter to be an essential part of 
the settlement already partially realized. But the main purpose 
of the "System" was the assurance thereby afforded to the g'ov- 
ernor of a continued support of government, a question, which, 
if unsettled, made orderly development of any policy impossible. 
The price paid for this assurance was seriously formidable. The 
"System" not only involved the "undue" influence of the governor 
over the composition of the assembly, and the elections to it, 
as well as the patronage relations already referred to. It involved 
also the placation of important family "interests," like those of 
Livingston and Morris, by gifts of office. It involved the con- 
tinuation of the assembly elected in 17 16 over a period of more 
than ten years ; this circumstance, though mitigated by numerous 
bye-elections, finallv attaining serious proportions as a popular 
grievance. The preservation of the life of this assembly was 
considered so important for government purposes that the aHena- 
tion of the Schuyler "interest" was not considered too high a 
price to pay for its attainment. All this concentration upon the 
relation between the governor and the assembly had the inevita- 
ble effect of reducing the council to a position of comparative 
insignificance ; and it is not until the practice of the governor's 
presiding over, and sometimes voting in, the council is broken 

^ Council J. I. 396. Ass. J. I. 381, 395. Col. Doc. V. 514-5. 
^Col. Doc. V. 764, 768-771. 



156 PHASES OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT 

up, that anything like the old balance of elements in the Consti- 
tution was restored.^ 

Enough has perhaps been said to indicate how important 
were the possibilities for provincial development contained in the 
system of relations between the executive and legislature to 
which the revenue controversy actually led up. The workings of 
the "System" were complex and elaborate and make up a story 
by themselves. These operations are significant not merely as 
making up a structure of political relations in the province, based 
on a self-conscious movement for something more than a partisan 
or factional end. They constitute as well the perspective of the 
struggle for the general advance in provincial autonomy carried 
on under Clarke. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 

In preparing the foregoing, the original sources have throughout been 
exclusively consulted. Of these sources the following is a list. 

Colonial Manuscripts. In the State Library, Albany, N. Y. Re- 
ferred to as Col. Mss. 

Council Minutes (Executive). State Library. Referred to as E. 
C. M. 

Journal of the Legislative Council. O'Callaghan, Editor. Published 
Albany, 1861. Referred to as J. of L. C. 

Journal of the General Assembly. Abraham Lott, Jr., Editor. Pub- 
lished New York, 1764. Referred to as Ass. J. 

Colonial Laws. Commissioners of Statutory Revision. Published 
Albany, 1896. 

Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New 
York. O'Callaghan. Editor. Published Albany, 1854. Referred to as 
Col. Doc. 

Documentary History of the State of New York. O'Callaghan, Ed- 
itor. Published Albany, 1849. Referred to as Doc. Hist. 

Calendar of Treasury Papers. London. 

The New York State Library has produced an excellent bibliography 
of New York Colonial History, under that title, as Bulletin 56, February, 
1901, by Charles A. Flagg and Judson T. Jennings. 



' Col. Doc. V. 577-9, 580, 585, 805, 882-8. 



VITA. 

The author was prepared for college at the Coburn Classical In- 
stitute, Waterville, Maine ; received the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts from Colby College in 1890; from 1892 to 1894 was 
Honorary Fellow in Social Science at the University of 
Chicago ; and was a student in the School of Political Sci- 
ence, Columbia University, during the academic year, 1894- 
1895. At the end of that year he received an appointment 
to a Town^hend Scholarship at Harvard University, which 
he resigned in order to take the chair of History at Colgate 
University. While on leave of absence from that institu- 
tion in the academic year, 1900-1901, he was University 
Fellow in American History at Columbia University. He 
is at present Professor of History af Colgate University. 






l_RRin'1fi 



